


The Goddess Dreams of Peace

by Arithra



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Characters die, Dimitri gets visited by the Ghosts of Christmas, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Ghosts of Christmas, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Temporary Character Death, Watching the Past and the Future, but don't stay dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27747997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithra/pseuds/Arithra
Summary: “Maybe peace never lasts,” and Sothis' voice had taken on that strange echoing quality again, “But does it make that useless, worthless, not worth striving for?” Her hair glowed brighter and brighter and her walk towards Dimitri suddenly seemed like the stalk of a predator. “Do you think your own choices have no influence on it? That kindness and genuinity have no meaning? The past is set in stone… but the future...”Dimitri tried to step back but found he could not move. “I don’t think this is something I can teach you, fool of a boy, but,” and there was no escape from her slitted eyes. ”But you must learn… and the right teacher can be found.”--Or: While on the run from the Empire, Dimitri is forced to seek shelter due to heavy snow. He knows the ghosts won't approve of his weakness delaying them. But this time, it is a different set of ghosts that haunt him, and Dimitri finds himself confronting the Ghosts of the Past, the Present and the Future, who are intent on teaching him something.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Blue Lions Students, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 24
Kudos: 52





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> It's December so I finally post this piece without feeling completely out of season! Please enjoy Dimitri's personal visits by the Ghosts of not-really-Christmas!
> 
> A big thank you to [@Glorfinniell ](https://twitter.com/Glorfinniell)for the beta! 

Winter in Faerghus was inescapable.

The heavy snowfall forced Dimitri to take shelter in the cave, no matter how much he resented it. It had started snowing hours ago, and at first, he had been fine to carry on. His hatred and the burning need for revenge had kept him plenty warm. However, the snowfall had continued to get heavier and heavier and eventually Dimitri had barely been able to see the tip of his own lance. It was almost a miracle that he had stumbled upon the cave. It wasn’t very deep, which was likely the reason it was empty of predators, but it was deep enough to keep him out of the snowfall and shelter him from the biting cold of the wind. 

Dimitri felt a measure of relief as soon as he stepped inside. His cheeks prickled now that they were out of the wind and he wrapped himself together in his cloak before settling against the wall. He had no material to make a fire, but that did not bother him too much. Most people would have to worry about freezing to death, but Dimitri was of Faerghus and his crest blessed him with more stamina and strength than most people could dream off. He would be uncomfortable, but he would survive undamaged. He had no need for comfort, survival was enough. The additional blanket that he had scavenged from the camps was put up in front of the entrance to keep out the worst of the cold. Dimitri used his clawed gauntlets to scratch holes into the stone so he would have something to hold it up.

As soon as he settled down Dimitri made sure to inspect his fingers and toes for any sign of frostbite. Missing appendages would hinder him while fighting. Thankfully, he found none.

The ghosts whispered their discontent at the break they were taking, but while Dimitri would not have hesitated to chase down any enemies despite heavy snow he had no idea where his prey was. As such it was more prudent to wait until the worst was over, at least for now. So he settled down for the night.

Some of the chill managed to creep through his cloak, but his current position was both more comfortable and safer than Dimitri was used to. With the whispers of the dead as a lullaby he drifted off to sleep.

\--

He found himself in a big cavernous room, the sides lined with torches that flickered ominously. Dimitri knew the room. He was fairly certain he had been here before. When he stepped forward, lance in hand, his footsteps echoed through the hall around him. For a long moment, Dimitri thought he was alone, but then he spotted movement at the end of the room.

There was one—no, there were two figures. And when he saw them, saw where they were, Dimitri knew exactly where he was. The holy mausoleum. His steps more sure, he walked towards the end of the room. Towards the staircase that led up to what Lady Rhea had called the seat of the goddess on earth. 

The throne.

A throne that was not empty, but instead occupied by a familiar figure. The professor. Her hair was back to the color she had had when they had first met her in Remire, a dark green that now glimmered in the light of the torches. She had her head tilted slightly to the side, eyes closed as if she was sleeping, but she wasn’t breathing.

This wasn’t how the dead usually haunted him.

However, the professor wasn’t alone, there was someone else, a young girl, lounging on the side of the throne, her bare feet dangling in the air. She was watching Dimitri with otherworldly eyes. She was dressed in strange clothes that did not seem functional at all.

“What do we have here…” the girl murmured as if to herself, then she glanced at the professor. “What an unusual visitor.”

Then the girl hopped from the armrest of the throne. It seemed almost as if she was floating to the ground. Dimitri watched her with weary eyes.

“Who are you?” Dimitri asked her, his voice rough from disuse, and his grip on his lance tightened. “How did I end up here?”

She studied him and started to make her way down the stairs, walking with an eerie grace. “I am the end and the beginning.”

Dimitri shifted his stance and the girl laughed, a clear tinkling sound that should have belonged to an older person. “But my name is Sothis.”

His eyes widening, Dimitri took a step back. Sothis? His eyes flickered around the room. The holy mausoleum. Where the Professor had gotten the sword of the creator. The sword that was now nowhere in sight.

He looked back to the girl, who wasn’t a girl, standing in front of the professor. She was glowing with the same unearthly light that had made the professor’s hair shine in the dark.

“You are here,” Sothis—how could she be Sothis?— told him, in a strangely echoing voice. “Because you are dreaming.” She paused and looked back at the Professor, the sudden softness on her face was startling. And even more startling was seeing that softness vanish in the instance her gaze wandered back to him. “I did not bring you here. So she must have… How curious…”

She trailed off and continued her leisure walk down the stairs.

“What is the professor doing here?” Dimitri retreated another step, his lance held in a ready position. It seemed to amuse her—the Goddess?

“She is dreaming.” The girl told him with a smile. Dimitri watched as she started walking down the staircase slowly, though her gaze remained on the professor. He looked back at her as well. It seemed like she was smiling in her sleep. The memory of the wonder he had felt when she had first done so was barely a distant memory.

“What does she dream of?” he found himself asking. 

The girl smiled. “Peace.”

Dimitri’s own laughter took him by surprise. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Peace is a lie.”

The girl remained unmoved, her smile unchanging “Is it?” she asked, and suddenly there was something terrible about her presence. Dimitri’s breath stuttered in his throat.

“This is the Ethereal Moon, you should know what that means.”

Dimitri did not, and... the Goddess—but how could she be the Goddess?—must have been able to read that on his face. She chuckled, and it was the sound that should have come from the throat of a beast. When she spoke again, her voice had taken the sing-song quality of recitation. “The goddess has returned to her home in heaven to sleep and pray for peace.”

Dimitri swallowed. “But you aren’t sleeping.”

She laughed, pleased this time. “Smart boy,” She praised, and actually sounded like she meant it. “But do you know what that means?”

Dimitri looked away from her, towards the professor. He remembered what the ceremony was supposed to be about. What they say had happened in the Sealed Forest.

When he looked back to Sothis—the Goddess—she was smiling enigmatically. “Your Professor, “ she stopped, “but, mhm, she was not really yours was she?”

Dimitri’s hands tightened on his lance and he gnashed his teeth. His blood boiled at the reminder of her. The professor had been the homeroom teacher of the Black Eagles, even if she had also instructed the rest of them and often taken them along on missions. And in the end, she had stood against Edelgard. But under the almost taunting look of the goddess he said nothing, only gnashed his teeth.

“Still, your teacher or not, she would be sad to see what has become of you.” Inhuman eyes assessed his form, the messy hair, the mismatched armor, the dirty cloak, and likely found him wanting. “She so enjoyed your honesty and kindness.”

Honesty. Hah. Dimitri didn’t know if he had been true to himself, or if he had simply been clinging to what he had known of himself before. Felix, at least, had believed it was the latter. Dimitri had not wanted him to be right but given his current circumstances—

Dimitri shook his head and—likely rather foolishly—tore his head away from the descending figure to look at the professor again. Honest or not, he had enjoyed her company. There had been something special in seeing the professor find herself more and more. Not that it mattered now.

He looked back at the Goddess.

“It matters not,” he told her. “The professor is dead.” Dead, but not one of his ghosts. Maybe she would be after this dream.

Whether true or simply playacting, his honesty and kindness no longer mattered. Only one thing mattered to Dimitri now and that was seeing to Edelgard’s demise. Maybe that would be his last kindness to the world, setting the ghosts to rest and freeing the world of her taint.

“Maybe peace never lasts,” and her voice had taken on that strange echoing quality again, “But does it make that useless, worthless, not worth striving for?” Her hair glowed brighter and brighter and her walk towards Dimitri suddenly seemed like the stalk of a predator. “Do you think your own choices have no influence on it? That kindness and genuinity have no meaning? The past is set in stone… but the future...”

Dimitri tried to step back but found he could not move. “I don’t think this is something I can teach you, fool of a boy, but,” and there was no escape from her slitted eyes. ”But you must learn… and the right teacher can be found.”

The goddess smiled standing right in front of him and glowing with awe-inspiring power. Her smile was wonderful; warm, magnanimous, and terrible. “You must go back to the beginning.”

\--

And Dimitri woke with a gasp. His heartbeat pounding in his ears and his breathing quick and almost panicked. In his grasp, the hilt of his lance groaned under the pressure, but he could not bring himself to let go of it.

Outside of his cave, the blizzard was still raging on. Dimitri focused on his breezing. He did not know what this strange dream had rattled him so badly. He had had far worse dreams in the past. After wiping the cold sweat from his face with the edge of his cloak, Dimitri settled back against the cold wall again. Around him, the ghosts whispered, calmer than they usually were, and it allowed him a moment to think.

The dream had been strange. Not only had he dreamed of the professor, who had been dead for nearly three years now, but he had also dreamed about the goddess. A goddess that was strangely enough completely different from any image he had ever had of her when he still had had a measure of faith.

Maybe it was because of the Ethereal Moon, the time when scripture claimed the goddess herself prayed for the people, but if that was the case, then it just proved how useless prayers were.

With a sigh, Dimitri pulled his cloak tighter around himself and prepared himself to wait out the snowstorm.


	2. The First Ghost

Dimitri had not meant to fall asleep again after his strange dream. Or maybe it wasn’t so much that he did not mean to but rather that he had not believed that he could. One way or another, he had not expected to sleep and even less so had he expected to wake up to someone softly caressing his hair.

Still caught in the space between waking and sleep, Dimitri leaned into the soft touch. It was familiar yet not, but soothing all the same.

His awakening was a slow one, for once not driven by nightmares or the fear of an impending attack—and maybe that should have worried him.

There should be no one but him in the cave but as he blinked his eyes open and came face to face with kind brown eyes, shaped very much like his own, his first thought was that he was still dreaming.

The woman in front of him was beautiful and fragile in the way that snowflakes were. Her hair was a shade of blond lighter even than his own and slightly wavy. She was smiling, but there was a sad tilt to it. Dimitri thought he had seen her before somewhere, but he could not place her.

When their gazes met, the woman’s hand in his hair stilled, but her smile grew warmer still. Dimitri could not help but wonder if this was a dream as well. It was even more out of the norm than the one he had had about the professor and the goddess in the holy mausoleum.

“Awake at last?” the woman asked him, and her eyes crinkled, “I’m sorry to interrupt your sleep my dear but we only have limited time.”

Her voice was strangely wispy as if it was carried to him by the wind over a great distance. Dimitri stared at her wondering if she was a ghost as well. Despite him not reacting to her pronouncement, the woman stayed calm, her smile unfaltering even under his scrutiny. 

Who was she? He did not know, nor did he know where he had seen her before. Usually, Dimitri at least knew where he had failed the people who now haunted him.

It was the cold that seeped even through his thick cloak that finally got rid of the last of the haziness and made him jerk back where he was sitting, ripping his head out of her grasp.

At his abrupt movement, the smile on the woman’s face fell slightly but she remained kneeling in front of him, slowly lowering her arms into her lap.

Dimitri might be awake, but the woman was certainly a ghost. If she wasn’t, she would soon be because she looked to be dressed only in a thin nightdress that would do nothing to guard her against the cold.

The cave was too small for Dimitri to stand or even use his lance effectively, but he knew very well that his physical strength alone would be enough to deal with most opponents—especially untrained one, and the woman in front of him had barely any muscles.

“It is good to see you, child.” Dimitri flinched at the address, but did not dare look away from her, feeling threatened on a level he did not understand. The woman sounded genuine, and that did not change, even as she continued. “Even if I wish it could have been under different circumstances.”

“Who are you?” he snapped at her, narrowing his eyes.

At the question, her smile actually faltered, if only for a heartbeat. When it returned, it was sadder still. “I suppose that is a fair question.” The woman folded her hands in her lap and raised her chin, the movement changing her whole presence. Suddenly, despite her nightdress and the disrayed stare of her hair, her very presence demanded attention and deference. “My name is Chloe Amelia Blaiddyd. Though I was born to House Gideon.”

Dimitri’s heart stopped, and he stared at her in disbelief. Before he consciously decided on the action, he started to shake his head. “No.”

Chloe Amelia Blaiddyd was the name of the woman who had given birth to him. The name of the woman who he had only ever seen in the small portrayal his father had kept. A woman who had died shortly after Dimitri had been born when the plague swept through Faerghus and claimed commoners and nobles alike, not even sparing the queen. When he had been a child, back before his father had remarried, back when the Duchess Fraldarius had still been alive, there had been times when Dimitri had wanted nothing more than to meet her. To know what it was like to have a mother.

The desire had faded, after Ingrid’s and Felix’s mothers had passed away, and he had finally gotten the presence he so yearned for when his father had remarried. But his stepmother had been a very different woman from the birth mother he had only heard about in stories. Though right now, the ghost in front of him and his stepmother carried the same air of sadness.

“You… are you a ghost?” he asked her, his voice breaking on the words.

She nodded, smiling sadly. “Yes. I am.”

Dimitri closed his eyes and let his chin sag to his chest. “Why now?” he asked her, “Why only start haunting me now?”

His mother—if she was who she claimed to be, and Dimitri would not know given he had never met her, yet, he knew even less why he thought it was the truth—was silent for a moment. “Because I have a purpose now. The goddess has chosen me to guide you through this part of the journey she wants you to take.”

At her words, Dimitri’s head snapped up again. The image of the terrible yet awe-inspiring goddess flashing through his mind. The image of his sleeping professor.

It was strange, but Dimitri had other priorities. “I have only one journey that I need to make—and that is the one to Enbarr so I can claim the emperor’s head.”

It was strange to not have a chorus of ghosts join in on the call, demanding the blood and deaths of their enemies. Dimitri looked around the cave. Except for the ghost of his mother, he was alone. He hadn’t been alone for a long time.

Hesitantly, he looked back to his mother again, but the former queen was still watching him calmly with sadness in her eyes. She had not moved at all. “For now it is just us, my son.”

Dimitri licked his lips, suddenly realizing they were chapped and bleeding. “You are my mother.”

Saying it out loud was stranger still.

She nodded and there was genuine pleasure in her eyes. “Yes,” she agreed, “But I believe that I am not the only woman who has a claim to that title.”

Her voice was sad, but nothing about her made him feel as if she begrudged his stepmother the position she had held in his life before her death. As if sensing the turn his thoughts had taken, his mother continued. “I’m glad that you had the love of a mother, even if it could not be mine.”

Then her lips quirked slightly and she met his gaze. Dimitri wanted to look away, but he could not. “Although, you always had mine as well.”

Dimitri swallowed again, and desperate to do something, he nodded. His... mother smiled. “I always wished to see you grow into a man… I still remember the day you first kicked me,” humor flashed through her eyes, “And broke my rip… I never thought I would have this chance.”

She reached for him then and Dimitri forced himself to stay still, as her hands framed his face and her thumbs stroked his cheekbones. “Dimitri, my son, I am so, so sorry for leaving you. You deserved so much more from me.”

This was the first time a ghost had apologized to Dimitri for leaving him behind. He shuddered, feeling wrongfooted, and unsure. How was he supposed to respond? What were her demands?

Dimitri looked back at her, searching for the answers in her face, waiting for the words that would surely follow. They didn’t. She continued to smile sadly at him, her hands gently caressing his face.

Eventually, Dimitri could not take the silence any longer. “Why are you here?”

The answer was immediate. “As I told you. It is a gift from the goddess.” Her voice held uttermost certainty. “It is the Ethereal Moon, and goddess Sothis prays for peace from her throne on the heavens.” The image of the professor sleeping on the throne flashed through his mind, the goddess—a child—gazing at him with imperious inhuman eyes. “And if we pray with her, our prayers will join together.”

Dimitri did not understand.

“I said It before,” he informed her, though his voice was halting and unsure, surprising himself. “I have only one purpose now. Nothing matters but the demands of the dead, and they ask for the blood of their enemies.”

“Is that so…” His mother did not turn away from him, but under his eyes, her expression seemed to gain steel and robustness. And as she looked back at him like that, Dimitri could see the image of the Lady Knight that his father had told him stories about. “If it is only the demands of the dead you listen to, then you had better listen well.”

Her chin rose, and her voice took on the tone of a proclamation. “The dead demand that you walk the journey the goddess wants you to take. And this,” and there was regret in her eyes for a moment, “I demand of you: journey with me to the past, back to the beginning.”

She held out her hand, but it was not an offer. Rather a demand. Dimitri hesitated and then grasped it. Then they were flying. Spinning through a whirl of color, through the stars in the sky, back and forth and back again.

\--

They landed with a thump, Dimitri’s hand still grasped in his mother’s, but his mind kept spinning and he had to steady himself with a hand against the wall. Eventually, it stopped and Dimitri opened his eyes again.

The sight before him made him reach for his lance in near panic. He knew this place. He had lived here for most of his life. They were in the royal apartments in Fhirdiad.

“Peace.” Eyes wild, Dimitri turned to face his mother who was looking at him calmly. “We are only observers here.”

It took a servant walking past them without acknowledging neither of their presences nor the lance held in Dimitri’s hand, for the words to make sense to him.

“What?” he asked.

His mother smiled and met his gaze evenly. “This is the past, it cannot be changed. We are simply seeing something that has already happened. Something that is set in stone, no matter what we do.”

Dimitri swallowed and looked around. This time he forced himself to take in the details of his surroundings. They were in a part of the royal apartments, easily recognizable by the golden framing on the doorways, but they were not just in any part of them. These were the queen consort’s apartments.

His stepmother had declined to live in them. And Dimitri himself had only visited them a number of times. Once exploring with his friends, and once before his father had remarried and asked to talk to Dimitri here.

The apartments had been emptier then. Almost devoid of life. Now, however, they looked lived in. The books on the bookshelf were carefully organized, but some stuck out as if they had been pushed back in with less care. There were trinkets scattered through the room. On the tea table, there was a used tea set. A set of gloves rested on a side table. The pillows of the couch were slightly creased and wrinkled as if someone had sat on them recently.

But the room was empty, now that the servant had left.

“Where are we?” Dimitri inquired, then hesitantly, “When?”

The sudden brilliant smile that came onto his mother’s face took him by surprise. It animated her face, made her look younger. Radiant. “One of the happiest days of my life.”

There was so much conviction in her voice that Dimitri could not doubt her.

And as if to answer Dimitri’s question further, the door to the sleeping chamber swung open, and his mother stepped out. It was almost eerie to see them side by side, but it made the differences between the young queen in the past—if that was what this was—and the ghost all the more clear.

The queen was vibrant and full of life. There was so much energy in her that her body hardly seemed to be able to contain it. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered with excitement. There was a skip to her step and from the look of her face, Dimitri got the impression that she could not have stopped smiling even if she tried.

As they watched, the queen fluttered around the room, Dimitri wondered what she was waiting for, but a glance at his mother’s ghost at his side gave him no indication. She was looking wistful and even more fragile in direct comparison to her past self.

A knock sounded on the door, but before the queen could even answer, it swung open and the king stepped in. Dimitri’s breath caught the moment his eyes landed on his father. It felt to him like he had almost forgotten what his father had looked like when he was still alive. Smiling warmly, with alert eyes, and dimples when his smile grew. His father’s ghost never smiled. At that moment, Lambert looked curious and lively, more unburdened than Dimitri could remember him being in daily life, though he thought he had seen flashes of it when he was a child.

“How polite,” the queen said dryly at his unprompted entry, but her smile did not dim for a moment. Instead, it got wider still.

His father laughed, rubbing his head sheepishly. “I apologize, but when you said you had urgent news, I barely managed to sit through the meeting.”

He stepped towards the queen and rested his hands on her hips, pulling her in for a kiss on the cheek that turned into a kiss on the lips, when his mother turned her head. The kiss lasted longer than Dimitri was comfortable with.

Eventually, the kiss ended, though the couple stayed standing forehead to forehead, with his father hunched over to do so.

“And how did you manage?” The queen teased his father, hands linking behind her husband’s head.

Dimitri could no longer see his father’s face, but he could hear the laughter in his voice. Dimitri wanted to know what laughter looked like on that familiar face, as he could no longer remember it, but he couldn't bring himself to step any closer. The love and intimacy between his parents seemed so strange to him, that it almost felt like it was repelling him.

“My self-control had formidable backup,” The king confessed and the queen laughed, next to him, Dimitri heard his mother huff in fond amusement. Eager for a reason to escape the intimacy his parents showcased, he turned to look at her.

Unlike his parents, his mother’s ghost looked almost sad—no, painfully nostalgic was probably a better word—though there was a smile on her face. “Rodrigue,” his mother whispered, her words being echoed by the living memory of her. “I suppose you stood no chance then.”

Lambert laughed again and the queen hummed with pleasure. They stood like that for a moment, seemingly enjoying each other’s company. From the corner of his eye, he saw his mother move, hesitantly stepping closer as if drawn in by the serenity of the moment.

She stopped when his father spoke again.

“Well, dearest, what was the news?”

“We are going to be parents!” She explained and pressed a kiss to her husband’s jaw. For a long moment, the king did not move and Dimitri hesitantly stepped closer despite himself. He needed to see his face. Needed—

Dimitri had never doubted he was wanted.

“Parents?” Lambert eventually echoed. “Me?”

“And me.” The queen nodded and Lambert stared at her, then he broke into a wild boyish grin, and lifted the queen up, and twirled her around. Dimitri stepped back, to avoid being hit, but he should not have bothered. In front of his eyes, the queen’s legs went through his mother and they turned and turned on the corner. Her laughter was a tinkling, joyful sound.

“We are going to be parents!” his father exclaimed, “I’m going to be a father. A little prince or princess!”

He barely seemed to be able to contain his joy, even after setting his wife down. The two of them celebrated, radiating joy and happiness and Dimitri turned away, instead choosing to face his mother. To his surprise, he found that she was no longer watching them either; instead, she was studying him.

She had said that this was one of the happiest days of her life, but it also meant that the vibrant young woman behind him would die soon. The child’s birth she was celebrating now would weaken her so much that she could not fight the illness long enough for the witch Cornelia to arrive. Or maybe Cornelia's arrival after the death of the queen had been a deliberate choice.

“Why are you showing me this?” Dimitri eventually asked her. She smiled. It was very different from the smile of his mother’s younger self.

“Because you need to see this,” she gestured towards the couple but did not look at them. “Because your father loved you before he ever knew you, and he loves you still.”

Dimitri closed his eyes. It was something he had known as a child, but now he was startled to find that his belief was no longer so sure because part of him wanted to scoffle at his mother’s proclamation. Maybe Lambert had loved him in life, but in death, that was not part of his priorities.

His mother must have read the direction of his thoughts because she grabbed his hand and the world turned. A baby was screaming, and other people were bustling around him. The sudden change in scenery made Dimitri startle, but his mother’s grip on his hand remained firm.

“Look,” she said and the calmness of her voice was an anchor in the sudden chaos around them. Dimitri looked in the direction his mother was pointing with the hand that did not hold his. It was his father, who was being handed the source of the screaming

“Welcome, son,” his father said to the screaming, red-faced, wrinkly baby in his arms. “I am so glad to meet you.” And his smile was warm and genuine and full of love.

Again, Dimitri turned away, and again, his mother’s hand squeezed his own. The world changed.

They were in the royal apartments again, but now the room stank of sickness. The dead woman on the bed looked much more like the ghost of his mother beside him than the vibrantly alive one ever had. At her bedside Lambert broke down, sobs shaking his body. He seemed inconsolable, ignoring all the people around him, from Rodrigue to Rufus and Gilbert. Nothing seemed to wake him from his grief until Dimitri, the infant, started crying. Only then did Lambert move away from his wife's bedside to stumble over to the cradle. The nursemaid who had been making her way over was waved away with a dismissive move of his hand.

His mother follows him to stand by his side. If not for the dead body looking just like her on the bed, the sight could have been considered an idyllic one. Dimitri reluctantly followed behind her. Whatever she wanted to show him, he hoped that it would happen soon. He had enough death in his life as it was, he did not need to have a death that he did not remember added to his memory.

“I’m sorry son,” his father said to the baby in his arms. “Your mother did not make it… I know she tried.” The king’s voice broke on the words.

“I did. Oh, I did…” his mother whispered. Dimitri looked at her, but her focus was on the memory of her husband.

“It’s just us now.” his father continued, voice subdued. “But I promise you, I will love you for as long as I can, and then longer still.” His hand carded through the baby’s hair. “I know your mother will.”

There was no doubt in his voice. Dimitri could not watch him any longer. For as long as Lambert could. Until death.

“Dimitri,” his mother’s called for his attention. “Death does not stop people from loving you.”

He turned away, and she reached for him, her hand landing on his own. The world spun.

They were at the funeral and watched as the queen was put into the ground. Rodrigue stood behind his father, a steadying hand on his shoulder. Dimitri the infant was not in attendance. The atmosphere was somber and reversed and for the first time since this strange dream had begun Dimitri found irritation rise inside of him. What good would this do?

“He is dead,” Dimitri said sharply. “Has been for years.” He turned to his mother; she looked surprised by his interruption and he felt his irritation rise further. “What good does it do to look at this? It won’t make a difference. The only thing needed is for the emperor to die so father can rest at peace. All of this,” he gestured towards the people attending the funeral, “doesn’t matter. Giving the dead the vengeance and the peace they demand does.”

The surprise on his mother’s face had faded away to be replaced by consideration. “Mhm.” she inclined her head and mirrored Dimitri’s gesture, indicating the people. “Watch your father,” She insisted. “Look at Rodrigue. What do you see?”

Dimitri made an inarticulate sound of frustration, but under his mother’s unfaltering gaze he looked back at the congregation. Next to him, his mother took a deep breath. “Does Lambert look like a broken man?”

Dimitri faltered for a moment at the blunt question, changing a glance to the side, but his mother was looking straight ahead.

Hesitantly, he turned back towards the crowd, this time studying his father directly. Did he look like a broken man? Yes, yes he did. Bowed shoulder, pale and wan, he seemed too thin for his clothes. The strength and vitality Dimitri had always associated with him, that he had seen in the previous memories, that he remembered of him. The strength that even the ghost of his father still had—they were nowhere in sight.

Dimitri did not answer his mother but she seemed to know his answer all the same. “He hated then,” She said, her voice subdued. “He raged, and raged until he was too tired to do even that… but he could not give up. Too much depended on him.”

Dimitri turned his gaze away from the sight, just after he caught sight of Rodrigue putting his arm on his father’s shoulders.

“So?” He asked because he wanted this to be over.

“So,” she said and looked him square in the eye. “He moved on. Put my death behind him and lived. He worked to ensure that something like the plague would not happen again.”

Dimitri laughed. “Cornelia.”

His mother did not falter, though she looked sad. “Do mistakes and failures mean that you should never try?”

She did not wait for him to answer and continued on instead. “My death broke him,” She said those words like they were an idle fact. “Death and tragedy does that to people. But something that is broken can be fixed again, not like before, maybe. But whole all the same. Lambert moved on. He looked at those around him—Let Rodrigue pull him to his feet and loved you with all his heart. Eventually, he put himself together again.”

Dimitri did not want to hear it, but his mother did not stop. She reached for him again. “Eventually, he found peace.”

Her hand had touched his arm and the world spun once more.

\--

The scene changed again, but this time they were no longer in Fhirdiad, though Dimitri recognized the place all the same. Fraldarius. Fraldarius in winter to be more specific.

They had landed in one of the larger family rooms that Dimitri had always been welcome in, even as a child, but through the large window, he could see the snow piling high outside. The low temperatures of the outside were not noticeable in the room, however, as a fire crackled merrily in the large fireplace. Rodrigue and his father were sitting in the large armchairs before it, but had turned them sideways so they could watch the children play.

It took a while for Dimitri to notice what exactly was happening, but once he spotted the remains of the wrapping paper that Glenn kept throwing behind him, it was easy to do so. It was his birthday. Dimitri had no memory of ever celebrating his birthday in Fraldarius, as far back as he could remember formal celebrations took place in Fhirdiad, and on the next day, he got to spend time with his friends.

Dimitri frowned but allowed his mother’s ghost to tuck him close to the small group of children. Glenn, Felix, and himself. Dimitri could not remember Glenn ever being that young. Chubby cheeked and with a gap between his teeth. He forced his gaze away. The sight of his younger self and Felix was easier to bear.

At least for a moment. Felix presented him with a gift. It was sloppily wrapped and Dimitri knew with certainty that little Felix had likely done so himself. Young Dimitri unwrapped it with careful hands and that gasped as he spotted the gift inside. It was a toy sword, finely crafted but with a childishly painted handle. When last he had been in his chambers—before Cornelia—it had still been there, but Dimitri had not known where he had gotten it.

Suddenly, he could no longer bear the sight of his younger self and Felix sitting shoulder to shoulder and sticking their heads together. Smiling at each other without a care in the world. Glenn complimented Dimitri on his fine new sword. He had a lisp.

Dimitri stepped away from them abruptly and retreated to where his father was sitting. Both him and Rodrigue were silently watching the children, both smiling slightly.

“How is the reconstruction going?” Rodrigue asked after another moment of silence, “I’m sorry I could not assist you lately.”

Lambert shook his head. “It’s fine. I’m just glad that you have recovered. I don’t…” he trailed off. “The reconstruction is going fine. Some of the people weren’t happy about having to leave their houses, but we have ensured that they have suitable places to stay.”

The reconstruction of Fhirdiad to prevent future spread of disease. Dimitri did not remember it, but he knew that it was one of the important decisions made during his father’s rather short reign. It had been brought up by that witch Cornelia.

Dimitri did not want to hear any praises sung to that woman. He still remembered her smug face as she commanded the soldiers sworn to his house.

To remove the memory from the forefront of his mind, he turned back to the children, focusing on Felix. Unlike Glenn and even his younger self to a degree, watching Felix did not make him angry. Instead, it was sadness tinged with nostalgia. There was something almost masochistic in the way he focused on it then. The sweet pain that came with seeing Felix smile at him—any form of him—with a guileless smile, eyes full of love and adoration.

In a way that too was a victim to the tragedy, even though it had taken Felix until the rebellion to figure it out and Dimitri—Dimitri had taken longer still to acknowledge what Felix had grasped. He was a beast, a dead man walking and his purpose was to ensure the demise of the emperor and her ilk. Playing at being civilized, as Felix had put it, and putting on a mask on his face did not serve his goals. Dimitri pushed away the pain at the memory of Felix's accusing eyes. Liar, liar, liar, they had called him without words, but even then Dimitri had wanted the adoration, the trust, and the affection for him that had always been part of Felix in his mind.

Little Felix did not think that his friend was anything of that sort—and as far as Dimitri could remember, he hadn’t been. Sometimes it was hard for him to remember the time before Duscur, during his year at the academy especially it seemed like whatever had happened then seemed far away and inconsequential—and now he knew that it was—but sometimes… Sometimes he would suddenly remember something. A conversation, an event, a habit. Even a smile, a laugh, or a hug, and it would seem to him that it had happened only moments ago. Most of the time, but not always, it happened around Felix. Likely, because Felix had been part of his life for as long as he could remember and longer still.

On the carpet, little Dimitri carefully swung the wooden blade while Felix clapped in excitement and praised him. Both of their eyes sparkled with excitement and they were laughing brightly.

Dimitri tried to burn the image into his memory, even knowing that it would gain him nothing. Little Felix shrieked with laughter and little Dimitri hugged him, babbling too fast for Dimitri to make out the words. But whatever the boy said it made Felix smile even more brightly.

Dimitri looked away. Outside of the window, the snow continued to fall. Looking at the snow was much more peaceful than surrounding himself with the memories of happier times. Dimitri had almost succeeded in blurring out the sounds of the room when, behind him, his father threw back his head and laughed as if all of his sorrows had never existed. The sight was jarring, and despite first having turned to look at him at the sound, Dimitri looked away. It was almost ironic that the one sight that did not pain him to look at in this room was the ghost of his mother.

To his surprise she was not watching Lambert laugh, instead, she was watching him again. There was something knowing in her smile, knowing, and confident as if she was going to make her argument soon.

“He regained his smile,” she said softly, “he put himself back together. Took the hands of people who cared for him reaching out.”

Dimitri scoffed, but he did not shake off her hand when she grasped his arm again.

The world turned and they were in his stepmother’s tea room. Patricia was taking her tea with the younger him and Felix, who was swinging his feet cheerfully. Dimitri’s gaze was drawn to his stepmother. He had all but gotten the way her lips would curl into a soft smile and the way she tilted her head sideways slightly when she laughed.

“She had her part in that as well,” the ghost of his mother commented from next to him. Unlike the other times, she had not let go of his arm upon their arrival. “I am so glad she made Lambert smile again.”

Dimitri looked at her, hearing something in her voice that had not been present before. To his surprise, the ghost looked less tired and wan than she had before. Her smile slightly bittersweet, but radiant as he had seen her in life.

“Because you see, my son. That’s what the people who have passed on want for their loved ones.” She met his eyes evenly. “Mourn us, because we can be a little selfish too, but do not let it destroy you... Eventually, you have to move on. Just as life goes on.”

Dimitri wrenched his gaze away from her’s, then he ripped his arm from her grasp. He scoffed and felt his face turn into a grimace, and his next words came out as a growl.

“Not my dead.”

His mother did not argue with him, but the sad—almost pitying—look in her eyes said enough. Dimitri bristled and opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“And what about the living?” Her voice was curious and her eyes on him inquiring. Dimitri did not know what she expected him to say. He shrugged. The living did not matter.

“The living can deal with their own business, but the dead can only depend on me. I must kill the emperor so they can rest in peace.” He swallowed. “They do not deserve this torment.”

His mother was silent for a long moment, and just as Dimitri was starting to hope that maybe she understood his argument, she spoke up.

“You do not deserve this torment either.” Dimitri squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head. He owed it to them. For living when they died. He had to carry their memory onwards and fulfill their desires. It was a duty he knew to be his own.

“And neither do the living,” his mother tacked on.

Dimitri looked at her again. “The living? What torment do they experience?”

His mother met his gaze, there was something almost like satisfaction in it. “The living also desire and need things only you can give them.”

At that Dimitri scoffed out loud, but his mother did not let it deter her. “Let me show you.” She insisted and the world spun as she touched his arm.

\--

They were back in Fhirdiad. In Dimitri’s old room. The room was lit up by the afternoon light falling through the windows. Dimitri looked around and spotted his younger self, still beaten and bruised, lying in his childhood bed. It must be shortly after Duscur. Some of the bruising he could see had been further healed by the time Dimitri had woken up.

He did not have any clear memories of the early days after Duscur. What had shocked him back to his senses had been learning of the retaliation of the kingdom and the genocide of the Duscur people that had followed. 

How long he had been unconscious after Gilbert had brought him back he did not know. Dimitri had never bothered to ask. What surprised him was the sight of Felix, older than he had been in the last memory, but still with the childhood softness on his face, sitting at his bedside. The boy was pale and wan. Even from where he was standing some distance away, Dimitri could make out the dried tear tracks on his face and his red and puffy eyes.

“Please wake up, Dima,” Felix’s voice was barely audible, but Dimitri could hear the suppressed tears in his voice well enough. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

He could feel his mother’s eyes on him, but for this at least he had a response, after all—

“Please, please, Dima.” And Felix started to cry.

The words died before Dimitri could spit them out. His mother stepped up next to him, probably sensing his wavering resolve. Even if it was only temporary. The thought made him tear his gaze away from Felix and firmed his decision. This time when he opened his mouth to speak, the words came.

“That time is long gone.”

Whatever hope this Felix had for Dimitri. What care and affection, it had all died in the rebellion. Even if Dimitri had often found himself wishing it hadn’t. Now though, the knowledge of it was a balm on the wound his mother tried to poke her finger in. The time in which Felix needed him—or at least thought he did—and wanted him around, were a thing of the past.

His mother made no comment, she simply reached for him. It was getting tedious.

The world spun.

\--

The sight of the next location they landed in, made the rage inside of him rise. Garreg Mach. Garreg Mach as it had been when they had attended as students, and not the building getting ruined that they had left behind during their flight. Not the place under Edelgard’s control. The sight brought him satisfaction and reminded him of his purpose all the clearer.

He followed behind his mother as she led him through the monastery. Had she ever attended? Dimitri had never asked. And he would not ask now either, instead, he drank in the sight of the unmarked monastery and burned it into his memory. Another reason she had to die.

His mother led him to the Blue Lion classroom. The sight of his old classmates startled Dimitri a bit. He had not seen them in years. In the memory, they looked young and happy. Dimitri remembered this. It had been shortly before Jerald had died. His birthday. After Remire. After…

But still, in the memory they were now in, Dimitri was smiling. He now understood a little better what Felix meant when he had accused Dimitri of wearing a mask. Still, as his friends handed him gifts he felt like there was something genuine to it. He was pretty sure he had been happy. Rodrigue had written him a long letter as well… and Felix had.

In the memory, Felix stepped up to him after classes. “Spar with me.” the swordsman demanded. This, Dimitri remembered clearly, this, more than the gifts had made him happy. Had made him hope that even after Remire—

It was useless of course. The fanciful wishes of a boy who needed to be violently reminded of what he needed to focus on.

Still, Dimitri needed no prompting to follow his younger self and Felix to the training ground. Felix already had a practice sword picked out, but his younger self walked over to the shelf. Dimitri ignored the young fool and instead watched Felix. Felix, who was watching Dimitri, and not with anger or scorn or disgust… of anything. Instead, he seemed… pleased.

Dimitri's heart stuttered. His younger self turned and the small smile vanished from Felix’s face. “Don’t think I will be going easy on you, boar.”

“I wouldn’t dare, Felix,” Dimitri answered, echoing himself. Felix would never. They began their spar and Dimitri—

Dimitri was surprised when his mother grasped his arm and they spun. He turned to snarl at her, but the sound of laughter drew his eye. Ingrid dragging Sylvain by the ear and lecturing him, Felix following behind them with Dimitri at his side. The goddess tower behind them.

They spun.

Dedue and Ashe cooking, and his younger self getting instructed to simply hold the bowl. Mercedes gently guiding his stitches, Annette cheerfully chatting beside him.

It was…

Dimitri turned away from the sight of Felix and his younger self caring for the horses. Ignored the sound of Felix’s laughter as the horse flapped its tail in his face.

“That’s all in the past.” he addressed his mother, who for once, had not removed her hand from his arm.

“It is.” She agreed, “But that does not mean it doesn’t matter.”

Dimitri shook his head. “Edelgard needs to die. I—” he did not have the words to express how much he needed it. Not wanted, though he did want it as well, because the matter went past wanting. It was a need.

“But does it need to be like this?” she asked, her voice soft. Dimitri thought of Glenn and of his father. His stepmother and the countless dead that depended on him. Of Dedue. He thought of his terror in Remire when a blade cut Felix’s cheek, when Ingrid’s Pegasus faltered in the sky. He thought of the satisfaction in the professor’s eyes when Kronya ran from her in terror and she chased. And he wanted. And he needed.

He met his mother’s gaze, but before he could give her his answer, the world spun again.

Fraldarius. Dimitri himself was riding away towards Fhirdiad. Towards Cornelia’s betrayal. Felix watched him go, worry clear on his face.

Dimitri turned away from the sight.

“Yes,” he said, “It needs to be like this.”

His mother’s hands left his arm and raised towards his face. Dimitri did not pull away. Her fingers were soft against the skin of his cheeks. She framed his face and looked up at him.

She was so much shorter than him. The wistful sadness in her eyes confused him until she spoke. “My time is almost up,” the movement of her fingers was a caress, “But I'm so glad to meet you, even under these circumstances.” she looks at him as if committing the planes of his face to memory. And what a memory his gaunt and haunted face would make. “There is always pain in the world, Dimitri. But you must not let it destroy you and chain you to the past. You still have so much to live for. There are still so many people that care for you.”

Dimitri turned his face out of her hold.

“Lambert would not want this.” Dimitri bristled, but she continued on regardless. “I love you, son. Your father loves you. Your stepmother loved you, I’m sure. You are so lovable.”

The affection in her voice made Dimitri feel small and uncomfortable in his own skin.

“And others love you too.”

There was a change in the tone of her voice, prompting Dimitri to look at her again. His mother’s hand landed on his shoulder in the same moment their gazes met and Dimitri saw the firm resolution in her gaze.

“One last time.” her voice was fainter. The world spun.

“His Highness has been executed,” Someone said.

“What?” Rodrigue sounded disbelieving.

Dimitri did not look away from his mother, but he heard the sound of a chair being pushed back and quick angry footsteps. Someone made a choked sound.

“What did you just say?” There was a bite in the Duke’s voice that Dimitri only ever heard in Felix’s voice before.

More was said, but it was as if the world was speeding up around them. Startled, Dimitri took note of the sweat on his mother’s brow, the furrow of concentration.

When the world resumed normal speed they were no longer in Rodrigue’s office but in Felix’s room. It has changed since the last Dimitri had been here, and it didn’t surprise him, what did surprise him were the things that hadn’t changed.

Dimitri looked around furtively, but his attention was drawn back to Felix when the other lurched forward toward the vanity. For a long moment, Felix simply stared at his reflection. His hair was coming loose. Felix reached for something inside a drawer. It was a familiar figurine. A gift Dimitri had given him.

Felix's head fell forward and his shoulders started shaking. Dimitri watched as his fingers convulsed on top of the vanity. Then Felix made a sound that sent a chill down Dimitri’s spine. A sound of pain, somewhere between a groan, a sob, and a keen.

He was mumbling, and despite himself, Dimitri stepped closer until he could make out the words.

“No, no, no, no.” Felix was repeating over and over again, “No, no, no.”

He was shaking his head. Dimitri wanted—

Felix sobbed, and his arm lashed out, slamming against the vase on the vanity and sending it flying through the air against the wall. It shattered, the flowers falling onto the ground, petals scattering.

Felix’s hand slammed against the wood again. The crest of Fraldarius activated a bright flair in the dimly lit room. The vanity top broke. Wood splintered.

Felix pulled his hand from the wreckage. It was bloody. The blood dripped down from his hand onto the broken wood. Felix simply stared at it, made no move to wipe it away. He was shaking his head. “No.” he sounded angry, furious. But there were tears in his eyes.

With a scream, Felix slammed his hand against the mirror. It shattered.

Dimitri lurched forward, wanting to pull Felix away from the glass, but his hand went through him.

Felix stumbled backward and sank into the chair. The anger was gone from his face. He looked pale almost bloodless and he was still shaking his head. “No.” he mumbled again, almost like a broken record, but then, “Dima.”

That name—

It came out between a moan and sob. The tone almost plaintive, disbelieving. More fitting for a child than a man grown. “Not, Dima.”

Dimitri took a step back. This was—

And then Felix started crying. Deep heaving sobs. Broken words—Dimitri’s name and endless denials—spilling from his lips. And as Dimitri watched helpless, wrongfooted, he curled in on himself and wrapped his arms around himself in a desperate bit for comfort. Dimitri—

His mother grasped his hand, but Dimitri could not look away from Felix. Felix, who had given up on hugging himself and had instead taken to gripping his hair. Long strands falling out of the bun. Felix’s grip was so tight his knuckles were bloodless. He seemed to be shaking apart.

“You are loved,” she said. And behind them Felix screamed, wailed. It was a heartbreaking sound, Dimitri flinched and—

Dimitri’s heart was racing. The scream—Felix’s scream—still ringing in his ears. He was back in the cave. His hands were shaking as they helplessly scrambled along the wall. He lurched to his feet and hit his head against the ceiling. The pain brought a dash of clarity, but his breath came out as half a gasp, half a sob regardless.

That—

He—

Dimitri could not think about it. The nightmare—

This time, when the ghosts returned their presence was a comfort. Dimitri has no plans of sleeping again. Yet sleep he did. 


	3. The Second Ghost

The next time Dimitri woke, he woke up to a snowball to the face, and half-forgotten laughter ringing out when he jerked upright. Dimitri reached for his lance, but the sight in front of him made him freeze in shock.

“Glenn.” The name was ripped from his throat. Because there he was. Glenn, for once unmarred by the wounds that had killed him. His dark hair messily pinned back with a hairclip, a smirk paying at the edges of his lips. Dressed in formal clothes in the colors of house Fraldarius and a sword belted at his side. In his hand he held another snowball which he was playfully throwing up before catching it again.

He was the only ghost around.

“The one and only,” the ghost answered. His voice was smooth, unharmed by smoke inhalation and screaming. Without the gurgle of blood in his throat. 

Dimitri stared at him, and Glenn’s eyebrow rose with amusement. He smiled at Dimitri and DImitri drank in the sight of him. It felt like his heart was bleeding. Glenn looked young. Younger than Dimitri was. 

“Glenn,” He said again, “I will kill her, I swear it.” He swallowed. “You won’t have to wait much longer. I’m sorry.”

Glenn’s smirk did not change and he did not move his gaze away from Dimitri’s own. The castignations, the demands that usually spilled from his lips, the things that Dimitri expected—they did not come.

Instead, Glenn nodded calmly. “I’m sure you will.” Then he shrugged, “But that’s not why I’m here.”

Dimitri felt lost. “You’re not?” What else would Glenn want? 

The once older boy looked at him sadly. “No, Dimitri. I’m here for a different reason.” he paused for a moment and considered Dimitri. “I am not the first ghost to visit you tonight.” A falter. “Nor will I be the last. I have a task for you.”

Dimitri perked up. Glenn smiled at him and held out his hand. It reminded Dimitri of the strange dream he had had about his mother. He remembered how it had ended. He hesitated, but Glenn’s hand remained hanging in the air in front of him. It was the same way he used to hold out his hand to Dimitri when he had beaten him in a spar. They were not in the training ground now but Dimitri could not help but reach for the hand all the same.

Glenn’s fingers curled around his own. The same way they had in Duscur, when he had pulled Dimitri behind him. Dimitri shivered. 

“Come, little prince. You need to see what is.”

Glenn tugged him upwards, and suddenly, they were flying. 

It was like with his mother, but not. It was still disquieting and unreal, but so much slower than the nauseating twisting from before. Dimitri could still feel Glenn’s hand holding his own as they soared weightlessly through the sky. Unbothered by the snowstorm and the bitter cold. 

At first Dimitri thought that they were drifting without a purpose, but after a while—and given the direction they were going in—that seemed unlikely. However, it took Dimitri a moment longer to find the will to actually ask his question.

“Where are we going?”

For a long moment Glenn did not answer. The snow covered landscape of Faerghus passing by below them. 

Then Fhirdiad appeared on the horizon. Despite having known that this was the direction they had been flying in, Dimitri flinched away from the sight. Glenn’s grip on his hand tugged him on. They did not fly to the royal palace—and he was glad, unsure if he would have been able to take the sight of Cornelia ruling from his father’s seat without something breaking in him. 

Instead, they fly to the merchant district. It was mostly unchanged from when Dimitri had last seen it, though it appeared a little more rundown. The streets were empty. Soldiers were patrolling. Was a curfew in place? 

Their feet hit the snowy ground without making a sound, and as they stepped forward they left no footprints. Glenn’s hand fell from his own. It was expected. Unlike Felix, Glenn had never been keen to hold anyone’s hand. 

Following the oldest son of house Fraldarius, Dimitri made his way towards one of the houses at the edge of the district. Newly rich probably, or simply a new merchant in the city. Glenn stepped forward and suddenly they were inside the house. There was no change in temperature despite a fire merrily burning in the fireplace. It was the only merry thing in the room. 

A man was pacing up and down the length of the room and a woman was standing by the fireplace watching him carefully. The man was ranting about something. Dimitri caught the words 'loyalty’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘choosing sides’, but he tuned him out. He had never seen the man before, nothing about him was familiar, except for the manner with which he comported himself. A man out to integrate himself with someone in power. Cornelia. 

It took Dimitri a moment to notice Mercedes sitting at the corner of the room, a sewing kit in her lap. Her hair was cut short and she was no longer wearing her uniform. She looked older. Tired. Sad. Resigned. The man continued talking—was he her adopted father?

He talked and talked and talked. Mercedes’s fingers clenched in her lap, wrinkling her stitching project. Dimitri looked at it. A lion. The crest of House Blaiddydd. He turned his face away. The man did not like it either.

“What are you doing?” he snapped at her, but Mercedes met his gaze with quiet defiance. “This is treason. Forget about it. Cornelia is our ruler now!”

Mercedes rose to her feet in a swift movement. She was taller than her father and quicker too. She snatched her work from his fingers and gave him a furious look. “He is worth remembering.”

Dimitri turned away. He caught Glenn’s gaze. Unlike his mother’s ghost, Glenn did not comment. Was this like the previous dream, Dimitri wondered? Did Glenn want to show him something as well? He must—he said he wanted something—and he must want it quite bitterly to turn his pleas of vengeance into this. 

Glenn reached for him, slapped his shoulder, and Mercedes’ home was gone. They were in a smaller castle now. It was unfamiliar to Dimitri, but the flag it was flying wasn’t. Dominic. 

Glenn took them to what looked like a family sitting room and Dimitri spotted Annette and her uncle, Baron Dominic, sitting at the table together. Next to Annette, there was a sizeable pile of books on magic. The titles suggested that Annette was researching the magics that Edelgard had employed on her attack on the monastery. For a moment, Dimitri wondered how Annette had gotten access to such tomes.

“The pressure from Cornelia is getting worse, Annette.” The Baron looked tired, “Unless there is a change very soon, I will have to declare for her.”

At his words, Annette’s shoulders tightened. She looked unhappy, without all the cheer and optimism that Dimitri had gotten so used to seeing on her face during their time in the academy. 

Annette opened her mouth as if to argue, but her uncle cut her off.

“Unlike Duke Fraldarius, we do not have the resources to continue this resistance—” he sounded unhappy admitting it—“and it is just resistance at this point. Without someone to rally behind there is not much we can do, the kingdom isn’t united enough and even those who would rather have Cornelia gone will be forced to bend.”

“But… we can’t just give up.” Annette sounded like she could not believe her uncle. 

“We have to.” the man answered her, his resignation clear, “Unless the Duke Fraldarius declares himself king based on the founding document… there is nothing we can do.”

The laugh Annette let out wasn’t truly a laugh. It sounded wrong coming from her. “Lord Rodrigue won’t.”

“No.” The Baron agreed. “He won’t.”

Annette got up from her seat. “But if we find his Highness we could—”

Her uncle shook his head. “Annette.”

Annette looked up at him. “Prince Dimitri—”

The baron shook his head. “Is likely dead. I had hoped that Lord Rodrigue was right, that he had escaped from Fhirdiad… but after all this time.”

“But father still believes— ”

This time the Baron’s headshake wasn’t resigned, but resolute. “Your father cannot bear the thought of having failed the prince again. He is simply believing what he wants to be true.”

Annette slumped, the expression on her face one of heartbreak.

Dimitri turned away.

“Why are you showing me this, Glenn?”

Glenn was leaning next to the doorway, unlike his mother’s ghost before, he did not show much engagement with their surroundings and the people they watched. At his question Glenn’s eyebrows rose. 

“I think I answered that question already, Your Highness.”

Dimitri took half a step towards him in frustration, but then faltered. This was Glenn.

Said man—a boy really, younger than him—looked more amused than intimidated. “Oh.” He taunted. “Scary. Where have your manners gone, Your Highness?”

Dimitri’s gloves creaked as he clenched his fists, but Glenn wasn’t bothered.

“I’m dead,” he informed Dimitri dryly. “There is nothing you can do to me.”

And Dimitri faltered. Horrified at himself, though Glenn seemed unmoved. He let Dimitri stew in his self loathing for a moment before he spoke up again.

“You’re supposed to learn something, Dimitri.” The use of his name made him look up; Glenn had stopped calling him by name when he was knighted. “Your mother showed you what was, I will show you what is… and… well,” he looked uneasy,” then you will see what will be.”

“The Emperor’s death.” Dimitri spat. Glenn looked at him, before nodding. “Yes. I hope so, but..”

Glenn straightened from his slouching position. “That is not what this is about. The Goddess asked us to deliver you a message.” His eyes were intent on Dimitri. “You are supposed to realize something—something bigger than your drive for vengeance.”

Dimitri growled again and Glenn clicked his tongue in exasperation. “In the end it’s your choice, Your Highness. Take this as an opportunity to learn, and find out if you can live with the consequences.”

There was a finality to his voice that made Dimitri cautious. There was anger in Glenn’s voice as well. More familiar that the glibness and humor had been, but still different. Dimitri—

Stumbled backwards when Glenn stepped towards him, grabbed his shoulder and spun them around. They were flying again.

“On to the next stop,” Glenn said, the cheer in his voice clearly fake.

\--

This time they flew towards Rowe. Dimitri had heard snatches of rumors of the lord’s change of allegiance the last time he had been in a town. But to actually see the banners of the Emperor fly over the castle was something else. 

Glenn did not lead him to the castle, however—instead he lead him into town. Towards the soldier's barracks. Dimitri had a first row seat on Ashe’s desperate flight when Lord Rowe bent the knee to Cornelia. He got to witness the other run from the soldiers that until that day he had likely called his companions. 

One of them called out for Ashe to stop. Claiming that serving Lady Cornelia would not be bad, that the Emperor—and Dimitri’s blood boiled at the mere mention of her—would lead them justly. Reminded him what the church had taken from him. “Cornelia is not someone worthy of service. She betrayed our king!” Ashe shouted back, furious, “And Faerghus does not bow to the Emperor!”

Glenn took him away before Dimitri could see what happened after. Would Ashe become another one of his ghosts?

They flew to Galatea, and Dimitri saw that people were starving. Left and right there were people with hollow cheeks and hungry eyes. It was worse than Dimitri had ever expected—and as it turned out the members of house Galatea were no exception.

“We can’t stay neutral,” Lord Galatea said, he sounded tired and defeated. Around the table his sons exchanged glances, and Ingrid who was sitting across from her father looked down.

There were still traces of fierceness on her face, but starvation had left its mark on her as well. 

“I know you have been looking for His Highness with the Gautier boy and Felix, Ingrid. But we must do what is right for our family.”

“Why is it so bad?” Dimitri wondered. 

Next to him, Glenn hummed. 

“Usually, the Kingdom helps them out when it gets especially bad.” Dimitri turned sideways, but Glenn was not looking in his direction. Instead, he was studying Ingrid with sad eyes. “But with the Kingdom splintered and fighting itself—the other territories—no one can spare them more than the essentials. Father tries, of course, but our own people and his duty have to come first.” Glenn shrugged. “I don’t know if bending the knee to Cornelia will help them. Neither she, nor the emperor, appear to be the kind of people who would bother with the plight of commoners.”

“Oh.” It was hard to look back at Ingrid, but Dimitri forced himself to do so. She was so thin, her cheekbones sticking out on her face uncomfortably, giving her an almost skeletal appearance. Would it be starvation that made her one of the people haunting him?

Dimitri wasn’t sure if he could bear it.

“Father, please. Let me search one more time!” There were traces of desperation in Ingrid’s usually composed voice. “Felix and Sylvain… Please,” she begged. “Just once more.”

Lord Galatea closed his eyes, and her brothers looked away from her. Dimitri found himself doing the same. 

“When Edelgard dies it will be over,” he said, wanting to convince himself, but the troubles of house Galatea were hardly new.

Glenn snorted in disbelief. “If you say so.”

Ingrid’s oldest brother started talking, making a report on the current status of the territory. Ingrid’s plea was ignored.

Dimitri expected that they would leave after that, but for some reason they lingered.

As her brothers and father continued their discussion Ingrid’s shoulders slumped further. Dimitri spotted Glenn make an aborted movement towards her from the corner of his eye.

Ah, he thought. That’s why they were still here. 

Despite knowing that lingering would gain them nothing, Dimitri could not bring himself to interrupt. Not with Glenn.

\--

But, eventually, Glenn tore himself away from the sight. Dimitri made no comment and Glenn grabbed his arm without saying a word. They flew towards the northeast of Faerghus, passing by Fraldarius and instead towards Gautier.

Dimitri spotted battlefields and the remnants of battles below them—but they went by too fast to make out any details. 

Until eventually, they come to a halt flying above one such battlefield. At the border between Faeghus and Sreng. Dimitri spotted the Lance of Ruin before anything else. He was not surprised when Glenn directed him into that direction.

Sylvain was sitting astride his horse. Dressed in full armour, with a Killer Lance on his back and the relic in hand. He looked drawn, tired and exhausted. But it was different from the exhaustion Dimitri had seen on Ingrid. The armies of House Gautier were in position, poised to defend the border from the Srengi raiders. There were many of them—and the battlefield made it clear that this was not the first attack. Corpses of both fighters and mounts were still stretched out on the ground between the two forces. 

Sylvain was surrounded by his personal battalion and situated atop of a hill, his eyes, though he was clearly tired, almost resigned, were calm and calculating as he took in the situation in front of him As Glenn and Dimitri landed next to him, the redhead stretched out his hand towards the approaching enemies and reason magic started glowing in his palm. It grew and grew, taking on an ominous cast. Sylvain’s finger’s spasmed and fire rained down on the enemies.

People and horses screamed. Sylvain did not flinch. 

Dimitri and Glenn stayed all through the battle. Sylvain had never been the kind of skilled warrior that Dimitri and Felix were, he wasn’t able to simply turn the tide of a battle through his fighting skills alone. Maybe he would have been if he had applied himself, but Sylvain never had. But despite all his slacking, Sylvain had always had a remarkable talent for battle tactics. And this battle made that very clear. The Srengi were outmatched on all fronts. 

Sylvain turned his horse around when the raiders retreated. Around him the soldiers were cheering, but Dimitri could spot no satisfaction on Sylvain’s own face.

At the gate of the Gautier fortress the margrave awaited his son. To Dimitri’s surprise, the older man was dressed for battle as well.

“You beat them back?” Sylvain nodded and the margrave inclined his head in acknowledgement. The usual satisfaction that had previously been present in the man’s face when he spoke about his house's triumphs against the Srengi invaders was absent.

Marius Gautier looked tired. Tired and old. 

Father and son did not talk much, and Sylvain retired to his room. It was messy, with books, clothes and letters strewn around. Beside Dimitri, Glenn made a sound of amusement.

“Some things never change.” The former heir of House Fraldarius whispered. But Dimitri had the feeling that that wasn’t quite true. The novels Sylvain had always pretended he didn’t read—those that were not just erotica but genuine love stories—were resting in his bookshelves. They were covered in dust. The books that actually seemed used were the ones on battle tactics and the higher magics. Dimitri could not even hope to understand what some of the spell formulas were supposed to do. 

For a moment he wondered what had changed Sylvain. If he was alright. But then Dimitri shook those thoughts away. In the end, it didn’t matter. It had nothing to do with him. 

Glenn had followed Sylvain over to his writing desk where the redhead was pouring over a letter. He hadn’t even bothered to take off most of his armor and instead only freed his hand so he could properly hold his quill—though that did not seem to help him much with his writing. Again and again, the heir to House Gautier crumpled his attempts up into balls and threw them into the fireplace. Dimitri watched it in silence, before he glanced at Glenn, whose face was carefully blank.

“What is he writing?” Dimitri asked him, curious despite himself. It was unusual to see Sylavin pour so much effort into something. Then again, technically, if that was truly happening, no one should see him here. 

Glenn did not answer immediately, making Dimitri frown and turn away. Sylvain crumpled up another letter and only then did Glenn answer. 

“Go take a look yourself.” It wasn’t really a suggestion.

Dimitri growled in frustration and stalked over to the fireplace. The paper had landed at the edge of it and hadn’t truly caught fire yet, but it had unfurled. 

Tilting his head to get a better look at the words, Dimitri read what little was on the page. It was addressed to Felix. An answer to a previous letter the other had written before, if Dimitri understood it correctly. The paper started to burn before he could read it completely, but he made out enough— _ finding his highness would help _ , was one, a plea to  _ give up the fruitless search _ another. Both had been crossed through, followed by:  _ Felix, I don’t know how _ —

Seeing that letter burn felt good. Dimitri closed his eyes before turning away. 

“Enough,” Dimitri said, and his voice brokered no arguments. 

Glenn looked at him. The ghost was leaning against Sylvain’s writing desk, his arm resting on Sylvain’s shoulder as if it was an armrest. The redhead did not notice.

“No.” Glenn returned, suddenly crossing the room with quick strides and reaching for Dimitri’s arm. “Not yet.” Dimitri tried to avoid him, but Glenn was faster. Unrelenting fingers gripped his arm and the world spun.

Faster and faster. They were flying over Faerghus. Dimitri got glimpses of people starving and fighting. Men and women, from the children to the elderly—all of them died. He hears whispers of the usurper Cornelia, prayers of desperate hope.

“They cannot win like this.” Despite the wind that was this time roaring in his ears, Dimitri could make out Glenn’s voice clearly, “Not with the kingdom broken and fighting itself.”

Dimitri snarled in frustration, but, like before, Glenn remained unmoved. 

\--

When they came to a stop, they were in Fraldarius. Fraldarius in a state that Dimitri had never seen before. It looked better than Gautier and the capital, better by far than Galatea, but the war had left its traces here as well. 

Something inside of Dimitri urged him to turn around and leave, he tried, but even as his feet walked him one way he found himself following Glenn through the familiar corridors.

“Really, your Highness?” If Glenn had not sounded so sad, Dimitri would have called his voice mocking. “You think I would let you avoid this?”

(Maybe he had hoped.)

Glenn led him to Rodrigue sitting in his office. The duke looked more tired than Dimitri had ever seen him, more tired even than the man had been after Duscur. It wasn’t Rodrigue that drew Dimitri’s eye once they entered the office however, but the weapon resting against the wall next to Rodrigue’s desk.

Dimitri’s breath caught, and the surprise and awe made his eyes go wide. 

Areadbhar. Areadbhar, his father’s lance. 

Dimitri had thought it lost to him when he fled Firdiad.

“How?” He breathed before he could stop himself. Glenn chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound.

“How? My father got it back for you.”

Glenn did not touch him, but the world around Dimitri twisted and spun all the same. This time when it stopped he was back in Fhirdiad, but the city did not look real. The colors were strangely washed out and everything was fuzzy around the edges.

Glenn was nowhere to be seen, but Rodrigue was there. Though it was Rodrigue like Dimitri had never seen it before. The Rodrigue Dimitri knew was a mild mannered and deliberate man with an, at times, exasperating sense of humor that, despite his reserved seeming nature, had no trouble asserting himself. 

The Rodrigue in front of him now was furiously angry, no shred of his usual calm reserved to be seen, and with each stab of his lance his crest flared menacingly. He was fighting kingdom soldiers, and with each man or woman that stepped into his path, Rodrigue seemed to become even more furious. 

“How dare you betray your king!” His voice was a roar, filled with menace.

Dimitri flinched back as bright magic flared around the duke, and he was back in the office. Disoriented, he put his hand against the wall to steady himself. Glenn was looking at him without an expression on his face.

_ He got it back for you.  _ Glenn had told him.

Dimitri closed his eyes and breathed. Silence reigned in the room. It was Rodrigue who broke it eventually, gazing forlorn at the heroes relic of house Blaiddyd. “Oh Lambert.” he sounded terribly tired and sad. “I failed you son. I could not keep my promise.”

The emotion in his voice was too much for Dimitri to take, refused to look any longer and, this time, Glenn took pity on him. At least after a fashion. Or maybe a short breather was more appropriate.

The next person he saw was Gilbert. The man looked defeated even as he was cleaning his axe and armor diligently. Dimitri remembered the words of Baron Dominic ( _ “he is simply believing what he wants to be true” _ ) and thought that maybe the baron had misunderstood his brother just a bit. Gilbert did not look like a man who had desperate hope.

They flew again but this time it was not one of the cities or castles they flew to.

\--

They landed in the snow. The area was vaguely familiar to Dimitri, but he could not quite place it. It was snowing heavily, not quite as bad as it did it the mountains were DImitri was, but—

Abruptly, Dimitri turned towards the east. He breathed deeply. No wonder that the area was familiar—it was not even a day's journey from his own location. But why would Glenn take him here?

Dimitri turned towards him to ask, but stopped when he found Glenn watching him with keen and almost angry eyes. He did not ask his question, but Glenn answered it regardless when he motioned towards the right. Towards the forest.

Dimitri looked.

He should have expected what he found. It made sense. After Fraldarius, after he had seen all his classmates, but Dedue, and Felix…

And it was Felix, Glenn had taken him to see.

Dimitri recognized his figure even wrapped up in a heavy cloak as he currently was. Felix was holding his horse by his reins and leading it forwards despite the snowstorm.

Glenn let out a pained sound. “Little fool.” It sounded fond, “You never knew when to stop.”

Dimitri watched as Felix slowly made his way through the heavy snowstorm. It was almost impossible to make out his form amidst the flurries of snowflakes and the most visible part of him was the Aegis shield strapped to his back. 

Felix moved forward relentlessly fighting against the heavy snowfall and Dimitri and Glenn followed. Dimitri felt strange. This whole situation made him feel disturbed and he did not know why.

They followed him for longer than Dimitri was comfortable with. Glenn said nothing.

“Why…” Dimitri found himself asking eventually, “Why is he out here?”

Glenn chuckled. “Searching.”

Dimitri pursed his lips. “For?”

It was not Glenn who gave Dimitri the answer.

“The damn boar.” Felix mumbled, sounding tired and defeated. Dimitri should not have been able to make out the sound of his voice over the wind and snow, but he did. It sounded like Felix was speaking directly into his ear.

Felix moved on, shoulders tight, yet with a determined set to them. But Dimitri stayed frozen where he had been. Glenn stopped with him, letting Felix walk away from them. 

“Why?” Once more the question fell from his lips, this time addressed to the air around, to himself, and to the understanding he had had of his childhood friend. (In the back of his head, Felix screamed.)

Glenn looked at him again for a long moment. It was a gesture that was painfully familiar. Rodrigue did it, Felix did it, and Glenn, back when he had still been alive, had done so as well. 

As a child Dimitri had once asked Felix why and his friend had told him that he was trying to figure out what Dimitri was thinking and the best way to answer him.

Eventually, Glenn shrugged, breaking eye contact and turning to look after the retreating form of his younger brother. Dimitri did not allow his gaze to follow.

“Soon he will give up.” Glenn informed him, choosing not to answer his question directly. “Then, next moon, he will try again.” 

Glenn still had not turned around and his voice was conversational, almost casual, as if they were discussing which cake to take with tea, rather than Felix’s presence outside in the middle of a snowstorm. 

“His hope is almost gone. Felix is barely holding onto it at this point… and father…”

Dimitri squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them again, after a long moment in which he heard nothing but his own heartbeat, he felt calmer. 

“Good.” Pleased at how steady his voice was, Dimitri turned away from the sight of Felix leaving completely. Whatever Felix and Sylvain and Ingrid too, were hoping to find, Dimitri knew that he wasn’t it.

“Is it?” Glenn asked, and he sounded honestly curious. 

Then, Felix’s voice carried impossibly across the wind. “He has to be alive. He has to be.” His voice broke at the end. It made him sound so much younger.

One moment of weakness was enough for Dimitri to turn and look at Felix’s back again. The distance between them had not gotten bigger. He let his eyes flicker to Glenn, who was gazing back at him expressionlessly. 

Dimitri knew without Glenn having to say it out loud what he wanted. In a way it was the same thing the ghost of his mother had wanted. But with Glenn, it was so much harder to say no. 

Dimitri breathed out, turning away from the sight of Felix. Tried to banish the memories of all the others from his mind. Instead he focused on recalling Glenn, as he usually saw him. Dimitri’s throat felt tight. “They should give up. The person they are looking for—” He broke off. “Felix at least should know better.” Yet, in his mind Felix’s scream of despair rang out again. Dimitri shivered. He did not dare look into Glenn’s direction.

“I have to kill Edelgard,” he insisted, “Cornelia will die as well, sooner or later.” 

And he forced himself to look at Glenn who was watching him with unreadable eyes. “They don’t really need me. They will be fine. Once the emperor is gone—”

“Do they look fine?” Glenn interrupted him. 

Dimitri breathed in deeply and looked back at Glenn. A strange calm had descended over him. 

“They should give up,” he informed his dead friend calmly. “Cornelia will die. They will manage.”

“The emperor?” Glenn interrupted.

“Once I kill Edelgard they will be fine.”

“That does not answer my question, Your Highness. Do they look fine?”

They didn’t, but—

“They look alive. They  _ are  _ alive.”

And they were. Sylvain might be raw and tired, Ingrid near starving, Ashe running for his life, Mercedes a prisoner in her own home, Annette exhausted and defeated and Felix with wild desperation in his eyes and cursing his name, but—

They were alive. All of them. Dedue, loyal Dedue, was not. 

Glenn did not argue with him on that. He could not, because Dimitri was right.

“Is that it?” Dimitri asked tersely. 

Glenn shook his head, a look on his face that set Dimitri on the edge.

“No. There is one more visitor…” He looked back at Felix and closed his eyes as if in pain. “You still need to see what is yet to come.” Then his gaze snapped to meet Dimitri’s own. Blue eyes, just like Rodrigue’s but more slanted in shape, looked at Dimitri with a look that sent a shiver down his spine. “I cannot force you to change your mind, Your Highness.” Blood started pouring from his eyes and nose, and his skin started to crackle and pop.” But know that there are always consequences for the choices you make.”

And at the end of his speech Glenn’s face was as Dimitri had grown familiar with over the years. A ghastly rictus of pain and agony, the face he had had when he had died. He smiled a horrible smile. “I hope you can live with yours.”

Dimitri jerked away in the cave. He was alone. The snow was still falling outside. His heart wasn’t racing, but he felt cold. Pulling his cape closer around him he tried not to think of his former classmates, tried to not think of his face. For the most part he succeeded, but then he would shiver, or some snowflakes would be blown into the cave and Dimitri would think of Felix, making his way through the storm.

Searching for Dimitri. The boar. Dimitri did not understand, and the knowledge that it was happening all the same settled strangely in his chest.

His sleep, when it came for him again, was an uneasy one. 


	4. Chapter 4

The next visitor—and by now Dimitri had found it in himself to accept that they were indeed visitors and not just dreams—did not announce himself as the others had. There was no gentle touch, no playful snowball, just the keen edge of a blade kissing his throat.

Dimitri jerked awake, and froze. He looked up at the figure—the ghost—in front of him. Judging from the stature it was probably a man, though he was not very tall. Dressed in dark and worn clothes and with a hood pulled low over his face and scarf around his mouth, he was all but unrecognizable. The only thing familiar about him was the smell: blood and rot.

His mother and Glenn had both been people who had had a connection with him. Was it the same for the stranger?

“And you are the one to show me the consequences of my actions?” At least that was what Glenn had implied. Dimitri spoke carefully, awake of the blade at his neck. He could not afford to die at the hand of a ghost, he still had an emperor to kill.

Although he could not see the man’s eyes, Dimitri could feel the specter study him. He wondered what the man saw? If he had known Dimitri before he cast aside his courtly mask. 

Eventually, the man inclined his head. He still did not speak, but he withdrew the sword and sheathed it, in a move that echoes with familiarity. 

Unlike the other ghosts before him, the man did not hold out his hand, instead, he stepped forward and they were flying, Dimitri still crouched on the ground.

It was strange struggling to his feet without the ground beneath him. 

When Dimitri was on his feet, his breath caught in horror and he looked around himself. For a moment he thought he was back in Duscur. The world was burning. 

Villages and towns were destroyed, only ruins left behind.

The imperial flag flapped proudly in the wind. 

Then there was Felix. Rodrigue as well. 

Him and the ghost, they were back in Fraldarius again, standing in the courtyard of the great castle. As Dimitri watched, Felix turned away from his father and began walking towards the gate, a traveling pack on his back and the reins of his horse in hand. He would have looked like he was setting out on a journey, if not for the lost look on his face. Rodrigue, too, turned his face away from the sight of Felix leaving. Felix's voice rang out across the courtyard and the servants and knights around them stilled.

“A kingdom without a king is not something you can defend. Like this… we have already lost.” 

Around them, the soldiers and servants looked away from the sight, but Felix’s voice carried. He sounded emotionless, empty, almost. “I have no desire to die in a vain attempt to pacify the memory of some dead king or another. It won’t serve anyone.”

And he mounted his horse. 

Dimitri closed his eyes, and the world spun. The cloaked figure at his side made no comment, and maybe that made the whole thing worse.

They come to a stop somewhere in a forest. For a long moment, Dimitri did not know what he was supposed to see here, but the ghost jerked his head to the left in an imperious gesture that Dimitri followed.

The moment his gaze landed on the treeline a pair of figures burst through. Dimitri recognized Gilbert immediately, the man had not changed much, except for the more obvious signs of age. The other person, however, required a second look.

It was Ashe. 

Gilbert and Ashe and a troop of imperial soldiers on horseback behind them. 

And with Dimitri a spectator that could do nothing to help them, to protect them, to save them, the imperials struck them down, killed them. Left them to bleed out of the forest floor. 

Dimitri turned to the ghost beside him, to plead, to demand, to— he did not know. The ghost showed no reaction, only stepped forward. 

The world spun, and their surroundings changed, leaving Ashe and Gilbert’s corpses behind in their lonely forest grave.

The next to die is Annette, fleeing after hearing imperial soldiers talk about her father’s and Ashe’s deaths. Dimitri did not know where she had intended to go, but she died without alone, with only the imperial soldiers she took with her for company. The ghost looked at her body for a moment and Dimitri wondered if he would finally say something, but then the ghost turned and Annette, too, was nothing but another dead person.

The consequences of his actions, Glenn had said, and the ghost had agreed, but how could that be. A spark of anger was kindled in Dimitri’s chest. An anger that was for once not directed at the emperor.

At first glance, the next location Dimitri is moved to a church decked out for a wedding. Side by side, he and the ghost walked down the aisle towards the official standing before the altar, as if they were the bride and groom. 

The people in the church looked happy and in a celebratory mood. Dimitri recognized a man in the front row as Mercedes’ stepfather. 

Suddenly, he knew what he was about to see. The ghost and him stepped to the side and a bridal march started to play, or at least Dimitri assumed it was a bridal march, it was not the one he was familiar with. 

The bride and groom walked down the aisle to the sound of the music, all eyes on them. Dimitri had never seen Mercedes, usually so sweet and kind and patient, look so coldly dignified before. There was a smile on her lips, but it held no emotion at all. 

The whole wedding ceremony seemed like a parody of what it was supposed to be. True to the emperor’s dogma there was no prayer to the Goddess, no acknowledgement to the tenants of the faith. Dimitri himself had never been a true believer, but he knew that Mercedes was.

The vows were spoken, loyalty to the emperor and her glorious rule promised—and Dimitri’s blood boiled at hearing it spoken in so many voices. 

The wedding ceremony was over, the celebrations began. Dimitri could do nothing but watch Mercedes’s empty smile at the head of the table. Frustrated, he turned towards the ghost of the swordsman and found the man facing him in turn.

Dimitri waited for him to speak, but he did not. Yet, he could not help but think that there was something mocking about the other’s posture.

As Dimitri watched him the ghost drew his blade soundlessly, whether it was due to skill or him being a ghost, Dimitri couldn’t say.

The moment the blade left the shealth the world spun again, faster and faster. He saw Mercedes daily life. Saw her struggle against her husband's ruling, saw her desperately try to help people in any way she could. Saw her hold true to her faith.

The scenes flashed before them at dizzying speed and Dimitri and the silent specter beside him, could do nothing but watch. Mercedes did not seem happy, but she set to helping people as well as she could. Treating the wounded and sick, and looking after the children orphaned by the way

And Dimitri allowed himself to think, if only for a moment, that maybe at least Mercedes would come out of this alive. 

But Mercedes too died. Her death was a tragedy that Dimitri almost turned his eyes away from, if not for the judging presence of the ghost at his side. 

_ The consequences of your actions _ , Glenn’s voice repeated in his head. Dimitri did not understand.  _ I hope you can live with the consequences of yours.  _ He closed his eyes.

Mercedes was executed for helping heal enemies to the emperor. Neither her father, nor her husband did anything but watch her with displeasure in their eyes.

She deserved better. They all had. (Dimitri could not give it to them.)

But Mercedes at least had a grave. Though he did not understand how the death knight and Mercedes’ mother ended up standing in front of it together. 

Dimitri and the ghost stood behind them. The inscription was fitting, but not enough to describe the woman Mercedes had been. They used her maiden name and called her gentle and kind with strict principles and great care for those around her. A friend, a daughter, a sister. (Not a wife.)

Dimitri wanted to leave. Eventually, the specter took pity on him and turned away from the sight. His footsteps made no sound as he walked out of the graveyard, and Dimitri followed him almost eagerly.

Previously, he had been annoyed by the ghosts questions posed to him, but now, in the silent company of a ghost he didn’t even know, he wished someone would talk to him.

It was laughable really. Dimitri had spent a lot of time on his own with only his ghosts for company. And maybe, maybe that was the difference. In these strange trips he was taken on, the ghosts could not reach him. He alone, but for one companion. 

The moment the ghost stepped out of the graveyard, the world around them started blurring. It was different again. The world around them twisted and turned in nauseating fashion as their footsteps crossed distances that would have taken hours, days or weeks to cross.

Dimitri kept his eyes fixed on the back of the swordman’s ghost. The cloak the man wore was so long that the end of it brushed the grass slightly. Dimitri thought the cloak must have been a deep blue one once, though time and wear had made the color almost unrecognizable. 

Suddenly, the swordsman stopped walking. Dimitri took two more steps until he was next to him, before stopping as well. The world stopped spinning. Dimitri’s breath caught. The sight before them was a familiar one. Conand Tower. 

They were at the foot of the tower, and the people the ghost had taken him to see where Sylvain and Ingrid. They had changed little from the last memory, but there were some changes that Dimitri could not miss. Ingrid’s hair was short and her face had regained a bit of fullness. 

“Felix left,” Ingrid said with an air of resignation, her shoulders drawn up and tense. Sylvain only nodded. He wasn’t looking at her, instead he was gazing at some spot in the distance. 

“I cannot believe he would abandon his highness’ memory like that.” She continued, and Slyvain’s gaze turned to her, but when she looked at him—whether it was for agreement or an argument Dimitri did not know—he simply shrugged.

“A memory won’t bring us victory,“ Sylvain informed her. His voice was calm, but Dimitri could see the strain around his eyes. How bad must it be that not even Sylvain could keep up his mask? Sylvain laughed, “We will all be dead soon.”

Ingrid whirled around so she could shove his shoulder, the movement sent her cape swirling through Dimitri. 

“Then why are you still here?” Ingrid angrily snapped back, but there was a desperation in her gaze that made the question a honest one.

Whether Sylvain had an answer to give to her, Dimitri would never know. The swordsman had turned away, and the world turned around them

They were on a battlefield.

A body hit the ground with a thud, Dimitri whirled to face it, hand going for a weapon he did not have. His breath caught when he recognized the body. Ingrid.

She was wheezing, choking on her own blood as she desperately fought for her life on the muddy ground. And then, in her dying struggle she seemed to catch his eye. Her eyes widened and maybe she shook her head — maybe she was just shaking.

Dimitri didn’t know if Ingrid could truly see him or, if close to death, she was seeing something else. Her last words, however, were painful to hear. “I wanted to be a worthy knight,” she rasped, blood dripping down her face, and her eyes going hazy and ever more unfocused, “Forgive me, Your Highness, Glenn.”

Dimitri jerked back, away from the sight of Ingrid dying in the mud, but her words rang after him and he knew, with uttermost certainty, if this was how Ingrid was going to die, she too would be one of his ghosts.

Around them the battle was still waging, but for all that he could not look at Ingrid, it felt wrong to leave her lying like this. Where her body could be trampled by men and horses at any moment. 

Next to him, the swordsman clicked his tongue in dismissal and turned away from the sight of Dimitri’s dead childhood friend. 

Anger rose in Dimitri at the dismissal, and he turned to the man. “She died,” he snarled at the ghost, “She died, and you dare mock her.” 

There were shouts and screams and pleas all around them. The screams of dying men and women, or dying wyverns, and horses and pegasi. The clang of steel on steel and the roar of magic being released. 

The soft sound of disgust his current guide made, however, was clear to Dimitri all the same. Yet, the ghosts didn’t even deign to turn to face him, and it made Dimitri even more angry.

He lunged for the man, grabbing him by the arm and whirling him around—

And they were flying.

\--

Again, they landed on a battlefield. Dimitri wasn’t sure if it was a different one, or the same one. If it was the same, their position was much more adventurous for getting a view on the battlefield.

The brief moment of distraction cost Dimitri his captive. With startling speed and dexterity the ghost ripped himself from Dimitri’s grasp and created a distance between them. Dimitri made to follow him, but had to reel back when a group of riders rushed past them.

Dimitri could see the crest of Gautier on their uniforms and he turned to look after them. The group rushed a bit further up the hill, and there Dimitri spotted another familiar figure. Sylvain, decked out in dark armor and with the Lance of Ruin in hand. His gaze as it wandered across the battlefield was dark, and Dimitri turned to take a look at what he was seeing.

The mist that lay over the battlefield made it harder to get a clear view, but from where they were standing Dimitri could make out the banners of his homeland, including the crest of Blaiddyd. And close to it, the glow of Areadbhar, his breath caught. Did that mean they had found him? 

People were dying all over the battlefield. The familiar battlefield. Dimitri knew this place. It was Gronder field, where the practise battle had taken place

Frowning, Dimitri looked around again, with new eyes, seeing a bloody reenactment of their training battle. And then he caught sight of her in the distance. Suddenly all thought about the dead and the dying around him are forgotten and Dimitri can only see the prey in front of him.

There she was, in the west of the battlefield under red flags flapping in the wind. Dressed in a red armoured dress. The Emperor. Edelgard. 

Dimitri turned. His blood sang and he could almost feel her blood coating his hands. He had no weapon, but his fists would do. He took one step, another, and then a blade was at his throat. 

Again he turned, this time away from his prey. Fury coursed through his veins, and lacking a weapon or not, he would not let some ghost stop him. He snarled, his crest flaring brightly under his skin.

The swordsman did not falter, did not so much as flinch. Instead he let out a sound of disgust much more pronounced than the one he had used to comment on Ingrid's dying struggle.

The man’s blade remains at his throat. “Let me go,” Dimitri snarled at him. “This is my chance, Edelgard—”

The blade pressed closer, and Dimitri could feel the small sting of his skin being cut. He froze, all but vibrating with furry and helpless rage, his eyes fixed unerringly on the man who held him captive.

Around them the battle raged on. People were shouting and screaming. The swordsman made a sharp gesture towards where Sylvain was fighting, clearly expecting Dimitri to refocus his attention.

Reluctantly, he did. He watched as Sylvain fought and fought and fought commanding his soldiers and cutting down enemies. There was no end to them. It seemed like for every soldier Slyvain and people killed, two more would rush over to kill them. They rush past Dimitri and the ghost, through them at times.

Eventually, there was a small lull in battle and Dimitri watched as Sylvain looked around. Saw his expression tighten. Sylvain was pale, his lips pressed together and all but bloodless. Dimitri saw him swallow and squeeze his eyes shut for a moment before straightening in the saddle.

When Sylvain’s words rang out across the battlefield Dimitri was so shocked he almost could not believe Slyvain had said them. How could he? How could he?

But Sylvain repeated his orders: “Fall back! Retreat!”

One of the soldiers next to Sylvain turned to face him, the same shock and disbelief that Dimitri was feeling clear in his gaze. “Lord Sylvain, we can’t just abandon them!”

Sylvain turned to face the man, his face horribly still. Dimitri did not care for whatever it was Sylvain was feeling. Edelgard was within reach and Sylvain was retreating. How dare he? If not for the sword at his neck he might have lunged for Sylvain at that point.

“We need to.” Sylvain told the soldiers, his voice calm. “The battle is lost, if we continue to push forward we will die for nothing.”

And he turned his horse around, the soldiers around them scrambled to follow his orders. None of them would hear the words Sylvain whispered as he turned away, but Dimitri and the ghost were close enough to do so. “Sorry, Felix,” he said. 

And they retreated.

They retreated. They retreated. And Dimitri was forced to follow, even after the swordsman had removed the blade from his throat. No matter in which direction he walked, he found himself following Sylvain had his soldiers. Dimitri howled and raged, lunged for the swordsman who seemed to avoid him with careless ease. Never before had Dimitri been so outclassed. 

He was not the only one outclasses, however, Edelgard’s troops had followed Sylvain’s retreat, had send crest beast lunging after them. Controlled by something inexplicable, just like the beasts that had taken part in the attack at the monastery. 

Sylvain and his soldiers fought back, all while desperately trying to get away from their pursuers. The Lance of Ruin crackled with power, and magic emerged from Sylvain’s hands, but it was for naught. 

Eventually, one of the beasts killed Syvain’s horse and forced him to fight on foot. It was at that moment that Dimitri knew Sylvain would die. It wasn’t because Sylvain was bad at fighting on foot, it was just that he was better—much much better—on horseback. And alone, against multiple crest beasts, he would have to be at his best to survive.

Sylvain lost.

The beast didn’t even kill him fully. One of them shook him in it’s teeth before throwing him to the ground with a sickening crunch. Dimitri stepped closer to him. Close enough to see the broken bones poke from Sylvain’s skin and to see the blood spread around him. 

The rage Dimitri had felt at seeing Sylvain retreat left him at the sight of his childhood friend's tears. Instead, he just felt empty.

Sylvain was taking a gurgling breath, eyes flickering around wildly searching for something. Dimitri, looking down at him, could see the moment Sylvain realized he wouldn’t find what he was looking for. The tension left his body, and his face twisted self deprecatingly. “Heh!” he mumbled, “I figured it would end like this.” 

And that’s how he died, looking terribly sad. Dimitri watched as the light left his eyes. His rage felt strangely far away from him now. Another demonic beast rushed past them, and Dimitri turned to look back towards the battlefield. All three of the armies who had met on the battlefield were scattered, there was no victor. 

He closes his eyes for a moment, before turning back towards the ghosts who still stood silently not far from Sylvain’s corpse.

“What now?” He snapped at the man, but found that he could not really work up his previous rage. Who would the ghost show him next? Who would die a useless death? Which ghost would haunt him? 

At his words the ghost turned his face away from Sylvain towards Dimitri instead. Even without being able to see his companions face Dimitri knew he was being studied. After a moment, the ghost jerked his head back into the direction of the battlefield. Dimitri wanted to ask why they had to follow at all, but, after glance back at Sylvain, he kept his mouth shut.

When he turned towards the ghost again, he reeled back in surprise. In the short moment Dimitri had looked away from him, the hooded figure had crossed the distance between them and was now right in front of Dimitri. 

The man’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder, and he was violently jerked to the side. And just like that they were back at Gronder. 

To his left Dimitri could make out the form of Rodrigue, who was slowly but surely getting overwhelmed. The banner of House Fraldarius was already lying on the bloodstained ground, men and horses trampling over it, and the Duke, too, was covered in blood.

Just like Sylvain, he had lost his horse, but unlike Sylvain it made him no less formidable. Magic—faith magic—sparked around him continuously, smiting whoever dared step to close. And those that dared to step close and manage to survive the magical assault fell to the man’s lance. 

It was the first time that Dimitri had ever seen Rodrigue fight seriously aside from the short rampage Glenn had shown him and the way the Duke combined magic and his weapons was a sight worth beholding. It was almost as if Rodrigue was a force of nature. But only almost. Eventually, Rodrigue too began to tire, as more and more soldiers swarmed towards him, likely aiming to take him down to damage their enemies’ morale. And they managed. They wore him down.

Against common sense, against the knowledge that he won’t be able to do anything, Dimitri moved closer to the man who was the closest thing he had had to a father since Duscur.

Eventually, Rodrigue fell. He hit the dirt hard, one more surge of aura bursting from him and annihilating the soldier who had brought him down. Dimitri looked at Rodrigue and realized that the man was crying. Silent tears streaming down his cheeks even as he struggled to get back to his feet again. He failed, and instead he fell, face down in the dirt. Rodrigue was mumbling something, but unlike the dying words of those who came before him, Dimitri could not make them out. 

He turned away from the sight of it, couldn’t bring himself to watch another father die.

A hard shove against his side sent him stumbling, and when he regained his balance, he was no longer standing next to Rodrigue’s dying form, instead, he was standing next to himself.

The sight sent him stumbling back again, but the swordsman—now behind him—put a hand on his back to hold him in place.

Dimitri—the Dimitri in front of him—was older than him, and maybe a bit taller. He was also missing an eye and had two broken lances sticking out of his back. 

His older self was fighting with a savage viciousness that made for an alienating sight. It was one thing to feel it, but a whole other to see it on someone—maybe more so because it was himself. 

Dimitri could not tear his eyes away from the sight. His face was twisted in a strange grimace somewhere between rage and vicious enjoyment, teeth bared in a snarl. There was no deliberation to his movements, only sheer force and animalistic instinct. But it was working, he was tearing to Edelgard’s soldiers like they were made out of straw, closer and closer towards the hill where he had spotted Edelgard earlier, where she had also been positioned during the practise battle. 

Heart in his throat, Dimitri followed behind his older self. His own body sang with bloodlust and he wished he could join in on the slaughter. Maybe this was it. This was the moment that showed him that despite all the death, he would reach his goal, would kill Edelgard. 

Only, that was not what happened. Instead of managing to kill her, she and his older self clash for a brief battle, before imperial soldiers swarm to her aid and allow her to retreat.

In front of Dimitri’s eyes his older self relently pushed on. Further and further into the mass of soldiers that swarmed him from all sight.

A sick feeling rose inside of Dimitri. He knew without having to see it that this would be how he would die. Die for nothing. Die without seeing Edelgard to her grave.

His older self was overwhelmed. Dimitri wasn’t sure what eventually sent the man to his knees, there were more lances sticking out of his back now. He wondered if the other could still feel his legs. The man landed face down in the dirt, but even then his older self pushed on even then. Digging his fingers into the ground to pull himself onwards. Snarling and raging like a rabbit beast, his expression unhinged. __

_ A beast craving blood _ , the words echoed in his head. Was this what Felix had seen in the Western rebellion? 

Eventually, even the relentless drive to kill Edelgard was not enough to drive his older self onwards, and Dimitri watched him die. The one eye he still had went glassy, his face still a grimace. If the head had not been attached to his body, he would have looked almost like his father.

Edelgard did not even spare him a glance. 

The battle around him trailed off. Soldiers were fleeing in all directions, stumbling over corpses as they made their escape. The smell of blood and excrements was thick in the air. 

Dimitri gazed across the battlefield. Fallen standards, fallen soldiers, fallen friends. His breath, when he let it out came out uneven. Turning back towards his own corpse, Dimitri was surprised to see that the ghost had stepped up next to the body and was staring down at it. The man did not move even as Dimitri reluctantly stepped closer. 

“Well,” Dimitri swallowed. “What now?” he asked, for once there was no snarl in his voice. Even to his own ears he sounded empty. From the ground his own face stared up at him, curved in mud. “What is this supposed to show me?”

To Dimitri’s shock, the swordsman laughed. It was the first sound aside from disgust that the man gave voice to. And it sounded almost familiar. 

“This,” and the swordsman gestured towards the corpse, “isn’t what you are supposed to see. It’s not over yet.” his voice was a raspy whisper, cracking and broken like the voice of a man who had all but forgotten what it was like to speak. Yet, Dimitri could not shake the feeling that he had heard the voice before.

Dimitri looked around again, but he could make out no other figure that could mean something to him, whose death could make an impact. 

Time passed. It started to rain. 

Eventually, new people appear on the horizon. Their armour showed signs of wear, but for all that they were wet, they were not covered in blood at all. They marched under a strange banner.

It took Dimitri a moment to identify it, but when he did it wasn’t because he suddenly remembered where he had seen it before. No, first he recognized the people. The hair of the professor was what gave them away. 

This was the church, assembled under the banner of the Crest of Flames. They spilled across the battlefield, searching for survivors. Among them, a figure more familiar than the others. 

Felix. The relief that suddenly hit Dimitri at the sight of him made him let out a shuddering breath. Felix. Felix was still alive.

And as Dmitri watched his old friend made his way across the battlefield, scanning the ground. Dimitri saw him close his eyes momentarily when he spotted Rodrigue, but to his surprise, Felix did not make his way over to his father. Instead, his shoulders seemed to tighten further and his steps got quicker. Felix did not walk into the direction that the remnants of the kingdom’s army had retreated, instead he seemed to be walking towards Dimitri.

What was he searching for, Dimitri wondered. Sylvain? He would not find him in this direction. What lay in this direction were only imperial soldiers and—

The sudden strangled noise that Felix let out threw Dimitri from his contemplation. For a moment he feared that Felix was under attack and that he would see Felix die as well, after all, but that wasn’t the case.

Insead, Felix had lurched forward past Dimitri and towards his corpse.

“No. No. No.” Felix mumbled to himself shaking his head and falling to the ground. He scrambles through the dirt towards Dimitri’s corpse. Eyes wide. Uncaring of the mud that strained his clothes. 

“Boar!” Felix’s vice was sharp. “Get up.”

He reached towards the corpse's shoulder, shook him. Shook him again. “Boar.”

Another shake, this time harder. Of course, there was no reaction. 

Felix shook his head. “No. No. no.” He whispered again, head shaking back and force in denial. 

Dimitri could not look away.

Felix, reached towards the corpse’s neck, and his hands were shaking so badly, he kept missing the neck. Once he managed, Felix let out a strange choking sound.

“Nonono.“ Felix's hands went to the corpse’s head, carded through the matted and dirty hair, stroked along the cheeks, checking again and again for a pulse that wasn’t there.

“No.” he kept repeating, “Get up. Boar.” He shook him. “Get up.” Again and again, Felix’s hands wandered across the corpses. Shaking him, checking his pulse. Looking for signs of life that were long gone.

Dimitri could not look away. He did not know what to do. 

Felix's head kept swinging back and force, he kept biting his lip. Blood dripped from his lips when he bit through. Felix did not even seem to notice, his eyes remained fixed on the corpse.

Hesitantly, Dimitri stepped closer, he felt strange, as if he needed to do something. Yet, there was nothing he could do. “Felix,” he whispered, but only the ghost could hear him, and not the man whose name he had spoken.

In front of him, Felix’s shoulders hunched. “No.” he repeated again, but this time it sounded almost like a sob. “No. Dima.” It was a whimper, and the sound of it drove the air from Dimitri’s lungs.

Then, right before his eyes, Felix curled over the corpse, his shoulders heaving with sobs, his fingers clawing at Dimitri’s cloak. “No.” Felix moaned, curling close to the corpse still and letting his head sink against the filthy back. Felix’s arms reached around the corpse and pulled him closer. The broken spears pressed against him in a way that could not be comfortable, but Felix did not react.

He just held the corpse, sobbing and choking. “No. Dima. Why, why, why.” The words fell from his lips without rhyme or reason, “No. Dima...”

Dimitri had not seen Felix cry in years, not like this. This was worse than the private breakdown that Glenn had made him witness. Felix was breaking apart for the world to see, and something inside of Dimitri broke right along with him.

Because this was Felix. Felix wasn’t. He wasn’t supposed to. Felix wasn’t supposed to care. Wasn’t supposed to mourn. Felix had left, had joined the professor, Felix wasn’t—

But the sight in front of him told a different story. Whatever Dimitri had thought Felix would or wouldn’t do. This hadn’t been it. Felix was crying, sobbing, choking, clawing at the corpse’s cloak, cradling his face with gentle fingers that could no longer be felt.

Felix still cared. 

Dimitri did not want to see this, but he could not look away from the sight of Felix breaking down in front of him. He wanted to walk away, but his feet seemed almost stuck to the ground and the thought of it, of walking away from Felix while he was like that made him recoil.

Dimitri could do nothing but stand like a silent sentinel alongside the swordsman's ghost who had not moved in all the while. Together, they stood vigil while Felix cried and cried and cried, worse than Dimmitri had ever seen him. And his tears seemed to go forever. 

When Felix finally moved, Dimitri had no clue how much time had passed. Without letting go of the corpse Felix straightened his shoulders and turned towards the east. His eyes were red and swollen, but they burned with an inner light that sent a shiver of dread down Dimitri’s spine.

Whatever it was that Felix did after that, Dimitri would never know, because the moment that Felix raised his head, the swordsman reached for Dimitri, and put his hand on his shoulder. 

\--

The world turned and twisted and they were back in the monastery. Felix was standing in the training ground with the professor. He was looking into the distance, gaze fixed on something no one else can see, and there was a strange quality to his voice when he addressed the professor.

“Could I have saved him?” Felix asked, and Dimitri turned his face away.

Instead, he looked to the ghost who stood next to him still, a silent sentinel. “Is this enough?” he asked the ghost, forcing himself not to listen to the exchange between Felix and Byleth. He wasn’t sure if he could bear it. 

“What is this supposed to show me?” he asked, then continued, “Edelgard needs to die.”

The words felt strangely empty on his tongue. 

Again, he got no answer from his companion. Again, the ghost only reached for his shoulder.

\--

They flew from battlefield to battlefield and Dimitri watched the desperation in Felix’s eyes grow. They began to pass strangely again, and he witnessed months pass in moments. He watched as the people around Felix—his former classmates, Dorothea, Flayn, Ferdinand, the professor and even shy Bernadetta—tried to reach out for him, but in the same way that Felix had walked away from him during the academy, he now avoided them

Would he mourn them like he had mourned Dimitri?

Dimitri wasn’t sure which answer he wanted, but seeing Felix as he was then, was difficult. Felix smiled during battle, as he used to smile while sparing. He smiled when he defeated his enemies, he smiled when he cut them down, uncaring of the blood that covered him. 

Felix smirked in satisfaction when Hubert died, and laughed when Edelgard lay dead on the ground. Dimitri felt satisfied at seeing her die, but at the same time he felt empty. Would it have been different if he had been the one to strike her down?

The fighting went on and Dimitri noticed that there was an emptiness in Felix’s eyes, and it seemed to grow with each enemy he slew. Eventually, the fighting came to an end. 

Dimitri watched as Felix looked around the victory celebration with empty eyes, wandering from one group of his friends to the next, and working up an expression that fooled the people around him, if only because they were drunk on alcohol and relief.

After a while, Felix walked out of the celebration and down into the town. Dimitri and the ghost followed and he wondered where Felix was planning on going. The other man had brought no provisions and it would be foolish to leave without at least giving someone word of his departure.

Dimitri needn't have worried about it. Felix didn’t leave. He simply walked through the ruined town until he reached the wall that had once protected it before Edelgard had marched her forces through it and climbed to the top of it. 

Felix looked towards the west, one hand on his sword and the other balled into a fist at his side. Awkwardly, Dimitri climbed upon after him, though he took enough time to give the ghost who floated up, an angry look.

“I wonder…” Felix said after a while. Dimitri startled, and look around, wondering if he had overlooked someone, but he hadn’t, that much became clear as Felix continued talking. “Are you at peace now, bo— Dimitri?” The question hung in the air between them, but there was no answer. “Did seeing Edelgard die bring you peace?”

Felix’s voice had a tinge of desperation to it and Dimitri wished he could give him the answer he was looking for, even though he wasn’t even sure what his answer would be.

Beside Dimitri, the ghost turned away, and the world spun. 

When the world righted itself they were in Fraldarius, and Felix was standing in front of his uncle—Benedict Fraladarius—holding out the Aegis Shield. Felix’s uncle seemed reluctant to take the shield, he kept pushing it back towards Felix, but Felix remained unmoved.

“The title is yours, uncle,” and he continued before the man could retort, “the shield was well. I have no need for it anymore. What use is a shield if there is nothing left to protect?”

Benedict shook his head. “You are going out to fight, aren't you?” He insisted, “use it to protect yourself.”

But Felix refused and walked away. 

Again, the world spun. And stopped and spun again. 

Dimitri watched as Felix fought and fought and fought. Dimitri felt like he had seen someone fight like this before. Felix got stronger and stronger and his enemies fell quicker and quicker to his blade. Something inside of Dimitri’s chest ached at the sight of Felix looking down at the bodies surrounding him with expressionless eyes. 

But eventually, even Felix at the height of his power was overwhelmed. There were too many enemies around him, and despite knowing that Felix would not hear him call, Dimitri shouted a warning. 

The sword carved into Felix’s side, but he continued fighting. Dimitri saw the way his movements got stiffer, and gained in viciousness what they lost in grace.

Felix did not stop fighting until his last enemy was dead, and in that moment he sunk to his knees and turned just enough not to land face first in the snow.

Red spread around him, dying the snow where it had not already been stained.

Dimitri stepped closer. He could see the way Felix’s stuttering breath misted in the air. Dimitri’s knees hit the snowy ground next to him, uncaring of the red snow. 

The wounds Felix had suffered were bad, but not bad enough to kill him if a healer was nearby. If a healer was coming, Felix would still have a chance. 

No one was coming. 

“Felix,” Dimitri choked out, even though he knew the dying man would not be able to hear him. “Oh, Felix. Not you, too.” 

His voice broke and the burn of tears in his eyes took him by surprise. 

But his pleas fell on deaf ears, be it the Goddess or his dying childhood friend, none heard him. Dimitri’s fingers buried themselves into the red snow. He stared at Felix, unable to do anything but bear witness as his old friend slowly bled to death.

Felix’s breath was becoming swallower, and his eyelids kept fluttering from fatigue. Dimitri could tell from the look on his face that Felix had stopped fighting. The realizations sickened him.

Then, as if to torment Dimitri further Felix’s eyes flickered into his direction. For one moment he swore their gazes met. 

Felix’s breath stuttered. “Dima,” his voice was so quiet that Dimitri almost missed it, “I’m sorry, Dima.”

It was almost a whimper. Dimitri choked on his own breath, grappling with something to say, but when he opened his mouth and reached for Felix—

When he reached—

Felix breathed out. A slow breath. His eyes went blank. His breathing ceased. Dead. Felix was dead. 

Dimitri stared at him and could not tear his eyes away. Felix was dead. Felix. Somehow, this was a tipping point.

Because Felix—

Felix. Felix out of all people should not have died. Not like this. Not—

Felix had survived the war. Had survived Dimitri. Had survived the kingdom itself. Had survived only to die alone in the forest after killing some bandits. Alone. Forgotten. Maybe never found.

The thought made Dimitri sick and he had to fight back the urge to vomit on the ground. Regardless of whether he was really here or not that was a desecration of what would likely be Fellix’s final resting place that Dimitri would not allow.

He slapped his hand in front of his mouth. He heaved.

Felix was dead. He did not look peaceful. He did not look asleep. He looked terribly, terribly sad.

Dimitri let out a shuddering breath. Sobbed without tears. They were all dead. All of them. Dead and gone. Dying alone or in meaningless battles. 

Behind him, the specter shifted. For the first time since he had come to visit Dimitri, he made a sound while doing so. It was not a loud sound, just the sound of fabric moving. It was a reminder—and the reminder of it made Dimitri suddenly furious. How dare this man stand by and watch as they all died, without sympathy, without sadness. As if their lives meant nothing. (In the back of his head, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Felix laughed mockingly. Because was that not what Dimitri had done?)

Dimitri whirled around to the spectre and rose to his feet. Yet, the moment his eyes landed on the swordsman, he froze. 

The specter, the ghost, the swordsman. He was familiar. 

Shorter than Dimitri and moving with the grace of a predator. Armed with a sword. Dressed in—

Dimitri breathed in. Looked at the ghost and then, glanced back at the corpse of Felix lying on the ground. The same scarf. The same cloak. The same sword.

When it breathed out it was half a sob.

“No...” He said, pleading, but it was for naught.

The ghost huffed almost like a laugh, but it was a joyless sound. And then he pushed back the hood, revealing a familiar face. 

Felix, it was Felix. Even having made the connection before, the sight hit him like a punch in the gut. 

The Felix in front of him—the ghost of Felix in front of him—looked just like the one lying dead behind him. The same hairstyle, messy and functional and without the care that Felix had paid to his hair for as long as Dimitri had known him. 

He looked just as tired and drawn as Felix had before he died. The eyes slightly sunken. His lip a bitter line. A furrow permanently etched between his brows. Frown lines already appearing at the corner of his eyes and his forehead—and covered in scars that showed a lack of care that Dimitri knew firsthand.

Felix, chained down by regrets, bloodstained and with a sword in hand.

“Felix,” he whispers and the specter nodded, studying him for a long moment before answering.

“A beast, they call me. The spirit of cursed sword given form. “A mocking laugh without humor. “Or the victim of such a sword. A weapon.” Felix shrugged, and the movement was nonchalant, his face did not give away what he thought about the words. “That's all that’s left. My father was called a shield. And that’s what I wished to be… But what good is a shield that has nothing to protect?”

Dimitri stared at him, his heart racing a mile a minute and nausea again welling up in his throat.

“Why?” he choked out. “Why did this happen?”

Felix shrugged. “Who knows?”

The carelessness of the remark made a small spark of anger flare in Dimitri’s chest, but it died just as quickly. 

“I never wanted to die for you.” Felix's voice was even, and he held Dimitri’s gaze firmly. “I didn’,.” he continued with a careless gesture towards his corpse, “I saw what a broken shield does to you. I saw how Glenn died and all you did was hurt yourself with his memory.”

Dimitri could not help but flinch, breaking eye contact and staring instead at his hands. Felix did not stop speaking. “I never wanted to be that kind of memory for you.” He paused. “But I suppose it doesn't really matter.”

Then Felix turned away from him, looking somewhere into the distance. (Felix was still lying dead on the ground in front of him. Blood spreading around him and dyeing the snow crimson.)

“I… searched for you for five years. Sometimes I think I was close to catching up with you.” He had been, Dimitri agreed, thinking of the scene Glenn’s ghost had shown him—Felix in the blizzard not far from him. Searching.

Felix continued talking, his voice still raspy with disuse, echoing like the voice’s of specters in ghost stories are said to do.

“I gave up somewhere along the way, but I searched still… until the news from the professor came.”

His friend threw a short glance back over his shoulder and the light highlighted the scars on his skin. Dimitri forced himself not to look away. “By that point I had to conclude you were dead. There had been no new rumors for a while… and I… I wanted her dead. Edelgard.” Felix clarified unnecessarily. “I could not bear the thought of having her win, and if I had to turn my back on Faerghus to do so…” a huffing breath that could have been a laugh in another life. “Well, it was not like there was much in Faerghus left for me.”

Dimitri had no idea what to say to that. “I— I did not want you to die.”

Felix’s ghost stared at him, looking older than all of the others that died. “So?” he shrugged his shoulders. 

Dimitri startled.

Felix grinned, but it was a tired look, not mocking. “When did I ever care about what you wanted?”

When they were children, but that was so long ago, longer even for Felix. 

Dimitri swallowed harshly. He found his gaze wandering back to the corpse on the ground. In front of him, Felix sighed. 

Then Felix—the ghost of Felix—took a deep breath; Dimitri forced himself to look up. “I was sent to show you what will happen if you follow your path.”

The sickening feeling in Dimitri's chest was back and it grew worse as Felix continued speaking, his voice emotionless now.

“Your friends will die. You will die. So will your enemies. So will Edelgard and her allies as well. Fodlan will eventually have something close to peace. For a while.”

Dimitri closed his eyes and hunched his shoulders. What a sight they must make. Him kneeling in the bloodstained snow and Felix a specter out of a nightmare. Dimitri hoped that he would wake up soon. 

“Listen,” Felix said, sounding firm and cutting through the haze of Dimitri’s swirling thoughts. Dimitri looked at him again, and to his surprise Felix caught his gaze without looking away. “I can guess what your mother and Glenn told you and tried to show you.

(Glenn’s voice asking: _ Can you live with the consequences of your actions?) _

Dimitri’s shoulders tightened, but Felix did not stop. He had not expected him to.

“I don’t need to tell you what I want you to do.” Squeezing his eyes shut, Dimitri avoided Felix’s gaze.

Surprisingly, the other paused for a moment, then he sighed, “I want you to live.” Dimitri looked up at him and found Felix looking at him sadly. “I don’t want you to die on the Gronder fields without me to—” He cut himself off, grimaced, shook his head. Sighed again. 

When Felix spoke again, he was no longer looking at Dimitri but instead at his own dead body. “The thing is, I’m dead. And…” a deep breath, “If you ever meet my younger self again, he can tell you whatever he wants. If you haven’t figured it out by now.” Amber eyes landed on Dimitri again.

“I want you to make your own choices. Don’t do what your mother wants. Don’t do what Glenn tells you to do.” A mocking smile. “Don’t listen to the demands and orders of your dead father and all the others.” 

Dimitri stared at him with incomprehension, but Felix wasn’t done yet.

“Don’t even do what I tell you to do.”

Felix’s eyes were warm, it softened the harsh lines of his face, and he had a small smile on his face. “The dead are dead. What you do in the future is up to you and you alone. It is your choice and no one else. Do not base it on dead people’s demands. They are dead, whatever happens won’t truly affect them anymore. Instead, ask yourself this: What is it  _ you  _ want?”

Dimitri stared at him wordless, and it seemed that for once Felix took pity on him as he started speaking again. 

“This.” He gestured towards his dead body. “Was the result of my choices. I won’t lie to you and tell you that you had nothing to do with it, but no one forced it on me. No one forced the others to follow you either.”

A pause.

“Dimitri.” Hearing his name like that—hearing Felix say his name as he had not in years—made him tremble. “Whatever you do, let it be  _ your  _ choice, and if this is what it leads to, then it is what it is.”

Dimitri closed his eyes, and when he opened them again his surroundings had changed. Felix’s was no longer the only corpse surrounding him. Dimitri let his gaze wander. The corpses were strewn all over the clearing, and he could make out more between the trees. Some were familiar, some were not. He spotted Sylvain’s bright hair, Ingrid’s cloak, Ashe’s bright hair, Dedue’s earring. He spotted the armour of the soldiers who had died in Duscur, Glenn’s chestplate, his father’s cape. He even saw himself as he had seen himself in the vision, spread out face down in the dirt with lances in his back. (Edelgard, her white hair spread around her like a halo.)

“You tell me to do what I want, yet you show me this?”

He raised his brow and looked at Felix. The other shrugged, looking unrepentant. “From one beast to another.” Felix’s lips curled mockingly. “Everyone dies one day—if you choose differently, different people will die. That is the nature of war.” 

Dimitri looked at him. “Only a fool would fight a battle in a way that he knows with certainty would lead to his defeat.”

Felix shrugged dismissively. “Your point?”

Dimitri laughed. It surprised him. “Do you think I'm such a fool?”

Amber eyes studies him keenly. “Beasts,” Felix said after a moment, “Do not think. They hunt.”

Dimitri said nothing. He remembered how he had reacted to his mother’s visit. To Glenn’s even to the sight of his friends suffering.

“The ghosts came to visit you, because someone wanted to teach you something.” Felix informed him. This, Dimitri knew. “So Dimitri, the question is, what have you learned? And more importantly: What do you want?”

Dimitri opened his mouth to answer him, but before he could, Felix reached out and pushed him.

Dimitri fell and fell and fell and fell. 

He landed at the foot of a throne, stumbling over his own feet and sprawling on the ground. 


	5. Epilogue

The ground was cold, but Dimitri did not try to move. A soft sound floated through the air. A melody. Music. There were words, but Dimitri did not try to make out what was being sung. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to put his thoughts in order. He still wasn’t back in the cave, so he was pretty sure that he was still dreaming. In the beginning he had thought that these dreams were just that, dreams, but he wasn’t sure anymore.

He was back in the throne room again, the holy mausoleum. The one where his first dream had taken place. Where the professor was sleeping.

The girl—Sothis, the Goddess, how could Dimitri forget?—had told him that the professor was responsible for that dream. He was sure, however, that what happened afterwards had been the doing of… the Goddess. If the girl truly was who she claimed to be.

Sothis had also told him that the professor was dreaming of peace. Did it refer to the peace that Felix’s ghost had referred to in the end? The peace that would follow once all of them were dead? Or was it the peace in the past?

Though Dimitri’s memories of his childhood were often covered in a haze and felt distant most of the time, he knew that he had been at peace then. Until Duscur. 

Sothis had told him that she could not teach him what she thought he needed to learn, but he remembered her words: ‘the right teacher can be found’. Did she choose the ghosts that had come to visit him? The ghosts who had taken him on that journey that had gotten more and more painful. His birthmother, Glenn… Felix. 

The Goddess had stressed the importance of peace and that it was something to strive for, despite its fragility. His mother had wanted him to accept that he was loved, that even the dead that were demanding their vengeance from him would not want him to throw his life away. 

Glenn had said that the Goddess had sent him so that he could show him that he needed to realize something. Something bigger than his drive for vengeance. Dimitri wondered. In the end, in the future he had seen, he had not achieved his vengeance. Yet, Edelgard had died all the same. Glenn had shown him all those situations where… where his presence was missing. Where he was needed. Needed by the living. The hope of the people of Faerghus. Glenn had wanted him to take care of them.

And eventually he had led them. That was what Felix’s ghost had shown him. Gathered them and led them towards vengeance. Towards all of their death. For naught. And even those that he had not let had died. And Felix... 

Felix had wanted him to live. Yet, Felix had told him not to listen to the dead. Not to the ghosts who haunted him. Not to the ghosts apparently sent by the goddess to teach him something. Not even to Felix. 

So contrary. 

So Felix. 

Do what you want to do, he had said, and Dimitri…

Had no idea what he wanted. For so long the only thing that had mattered to him was vengeance, but, as he had told Felix, he could hardly do the same thing the him in the future he had seen had done. No matter what Felix might have implied, Dimitri wasn’t that much of a fool. He had learned that much.

Dimitri raised his hands to card them through his hair, pulling slightly to give himself a point of focus. 

_ What have you learned? _ Felix had asked.  _ What do you want? _

Dimitri wanted… he did not want for what he had seen to happen. He did not want to see Gustave and Ashe get hunted down and die. Did not want Annette to be killed. Did not want Mercedes to be executed. For Ingrid to fall and die, all her spirit gone. For Sylvain to flee and perish without hope.

For Rodrigue to look so broken. 

He did not want Felix to lose himself to his bloodlust.

And… Dimitri did not want to die. Not like that. 

He sighed and let his arms fall to the side. Then Dimitri opened his eyes and sat up. The music stopped.

“Did you learn something?” It was Sothis’ voice and she sounded genuinely curious. Dimitri turned to face her. 

The Goddess was sitting at the bottom of the staircase leading up to her throne where the professor was still sitting. Still sleeping. Dimitri hoped that her dreams were better than his. 

He met the gaze of the goddess. “What was I supposed to learn?”

If he had actually been hoping for an answer, and explanation even, he would have been disappointed.

The goddess shrugged, her gaze unreadable. “That is up to you,” a pause, “You said peace was impossible. It isn’t.”

Dimitri laughed, it echoed eerily in the cavernous room. “What I saw was not peace,” he said.

Sothis’ gaze did not waver and she remained unmoved. Dimitri continued talking. “All I saw was death… my friends, my enemies… so many innocent people.” Then almost scracing. “It certainly wasn’t a dream of peace.” And he could not stop his eyes from wandering to the professor for a moment. 

The hum that the goddess let out drew his attention back to her. She hadn’t moved. Sat there almost as if she were a stature. Only her hair moved as if there was wind blowing. 

“It is where your current path will lead you,” she eventually informed him, and Dimitri bit back an immediate retort. If the smile that came upon the Goddess’ face was any indication, she noticed. “You can’t change the past,” she told him, “and what you can do for people far away from you at any given moment is limited,” she stood up, and it was with such a childish hop that Dimitri took a half step back, “But the future is not set in stone.”

Dimitri looked at her, looked at the professor. Remembered her with an army behind, with Felix—

He remembered his friends dying. The dear scattered over Gronder field, his one body laying in the mud.

“What will you do?” Sothis asked him, drawing his focus back to her. In his mind’s eye Dimitri saw Edelgard cut down by the professor, saw the war continued even then.

He closed his eyes and made to answer.

The Goddess laughed.

\--

Dimitri was back in his cave. He blinked at the ceiling above him, surprised by how much he could make out. Hesitantly because his muscles were slightly stiff, he moved forward and looked out of the cave.

The sun almost blinded him, and he had to blink for a moment before his eyes started to adjust. The snowstorm was well and truly over, but it had left obvious traces. 

Dimitri grabbed his lance and made his way out of the cave, as soon as he stepped outside he stretched and straightened his back with a crack, then he took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. His breath misted in the air. As far as Dimitri could see the ground and the trees were covered in snow, and in the light of the early morning sun they glittered. The world looked untouched and new. 

So very different from the muddy Gronder fields or the clearing in which Felix had breathed his last. 

He could not change the past, but he could change the future. Dimitri wasn’t sure what it was he wanted, but he did know what he did not want.

He did not want Faerghus to shatter and for the people to lose hope. He did not want his friends to die.

And so he started walking down the mountain. 

\--

It was easy at first, but the longer he walked the harder it got. Doubt started to eat at him, and the ghosts urged him to turn west, towards Edelgard, towards vengeance. 

(Towards death.)

With each step he took he struggled more. Once he even stopped and turned, only for the corpses of his friends to flash before his eyes.

Each time he faltered, Dimitri could almost see more ghosts join him. The bright flashes of Sylvain’s and Annette’s hair, Ashe’s voice, harsh and angry as he had only heard it during the mess with Lord Lonato, Mercedes’s helpless smile. Ingrid’s gurgling last breath. Felix dead on the ground. Once, when he actually turned and started towards Enbarr, Felix’s ghost walked beside him. Heart in his throat, Dimitri had turned around again.

It was enough to keep him moving forward. 

When the voices of the dead got too loud, Dimitri stopped walking and breathed in the cold air. 

“I can’t give you vengeance like this,” he told the ghosts. Doing what they wanted him to do would only lead to more and more ghosts. 

His words did not stop the demands of the dead, but voicing it out loud helped him focus. Helped him remind himself of what he wanted to do. 

_ What do you want? _ Felix ‘s voice asked him. Dimitri still did not have an answer. 

He continued walking. The snow crunched under his boots and the cold air stung at his cheeks. Eventually, he ended up walking through a clearing, something about the place was familiar and he found himself coming to a halt in the middle of the clearing

Dimitri looked around and a shiver ran down his spine. His hand tightened on the hilt of his lance. This was where—

(Felix had died. Would die?)

His steps suddenly much quicker, Dimitri marched from the clearing. He wasn’t going west where the ghosts wanted him to go, but east. Towards Faerghus, towards Fraldarius, towards—

Eventually, he came across another familiar sight and stopped. Dimitri wasn’t sure where he had seen it, so he took a look around. The scenery looked very different without the snow whirling through the air, but after a moment he remembered.

He could almost imagine Glenn standing across from him, and Felix and his horse walking away. This was the place Glenn had shown him Felix searching for him. 

Dimitri stopped walking and looked around. Due to the heavy snowfall there were no traces of course, but Dimitri looked around all the same. When he started walking again, he followed the path he had seen Felix walk in his dream. 

With each step he got sures and sped up. Felix had been here. (A Felix who was alive, and not a corpse on the ground.)

Felix had tracked him to this place, and now, it was Dimitri’s turn to follow him. He did not know how long he walked, desperately hoping that he was going the right way, but by the time he spotted the first actual horse tracks in the snow, it was already noon. 

Despite the fear and uncertainty that began to claw at the back of his throat, Dimitri started walking faster. He was sure that once he found Felix, he would not be able to run away anymore. 

When he caught up with Felix, Dimitri stopped walking. It appeared like Felix was taking a break, his horse was eating from a feedbag and Felix was kneeling next to it and using his magic to melt some snow into his canteen. From where Dimitri was standing at the edge of the clearing, Dimitri could make out the frown on Felix’s face, as well as the deep shadows under his eyes. 

Hesitantly, Dimitri stepped forward, and when Felix did not react he took another step. This time, when his feet hit the ground, the snow crunched. Felix whirled around, letting the canteen fall to the ground and pulling on his sword.

He froze mid movement, staring at Dimitri with wide eyes. Still unsure, Dimitri took another step.

“Felix,” he said, surprised by how raspy his own voice sounded. Dimitri hesitated again, he swallowed and cleared his throat. Another step. “I—”

Felix was faster. Within the blink of an eye he had crossed the distance between them and was in front of Dimitri. Then his arms were around him. Only surprise kept Dimitri from trying to jerk away. Dimitri froze, but slowly relaxed within the bruising hold. Felix was warm. Very warm. It was something Dimitri had almost forgotten. 

Dimitri licked his lips, whatever he had planned on saying lost for now. He looked down at Felix who was pressed against Dimitri’s chestplate. Dimitri could not see his face, he could feel him breath, even hear the shuddering in and out. Felix was clinging to him.

“You’re alive.” The words were almost too quiet to hear, “You’re alive.” The laughter that followed was almost hysterical. 

Slowly, Dimitri raised his own hands to pat Felix on the back. He felt strange in his own skin, as if he would float away any moment. As if this was another dream. Dimitri’s long cloak fell around them both.

“Dimitri,” Felix mumbled again, “you’re alive.” He relaxed at the touch of Dimitri's hand on his back. 

Felix sounded like he could not believe it. Dimitri shuddered at the sound of Felix saying his name. At a Felix who was alive—

It was grounding and strange at the same time, but even with the tears he could hear Felix shedding, his name sounded so different from how it used to. 

“I—”

At the sound of his voice, Felix tensed again. Dimitri could feel the muscles of his back flex underneath his hand. He braced himself for the loss of contact, but it did not come. If anything, Felix seemed to be clinging even tighter. 

Dimitri tried again. “I… I’m sorry.”

Felix did not react, he neither retorted nor pulled away. Dimitri dared to turn his awkward pat into a hug and pulled his cloak around them both when Felix shivered. 

“For what?” Felix mumbled, and Dimitri squeezed him slightly. Dimitri opened his mouth to answer, but instead settled on shrugging. Felix huffed. “I’ll get angry later.” Yes, Dimitri could imagine that. “For now...you're alive.”

Dimitri wanted Felix to look up. To meet his gaze. To see as well as feel him breath. To see the light in his eyes. The clearing where he had seen him die was still so close.

“So are you,” he said instead, and something in his voice must have sounded off, because Felix released him enough so he could look up at him, keeping a grip on Dimitri’s cloak. 

His eyes were slightly red, but he wasn’t really crying. Dimitri was relieved. “I am not the one everyone believed to be dead.” Felix’s voice was sharp, but there was no anger behind it, only a question. 

Dimitri lowered his gaze, stared at the pommel of Felix’s sword. “Dedue sacrificed himself so I could escape…I have been hunting since.”

Felix did not ask what he had been hunting. He probably knew given that he had been tracking Dimitri. 

“I—” He swallowed. “I felt like I should come back…Faerghus…” Felix was watching him carefully. “If I…we…want to defeat Edelgard…we need a plan.”

A plan that would not leave all of his friends dying on the ground, dying for nothing. 

Felix was still scrutinizing him. “So, you plan to actually do something other than charge at her like a rabid boar.”

Despite himself, Dimitri found his lips twitching slightly. “Yes,” he agreed, “I suppose so.”

Felix’s eyes had not left him the whole time, taking in even the smallest shifts of his expression. Dimitri did not know what he was looking for, and he was fairly certain that if he asked, and Felix answered, he would not understand. 

So he simply kept himself still. Kept his hands on Felix’s hips and waited. Eventually, Felix’s gaze flickered up to meet his own. The furrow between his brows deepened slightly in discomfort. Felix had never liked eye contact. The fact that he did initiate it regardless was enough to show that this was a matter of some import, 

Eventually, Felix broke eye contact. Whether he had found what he was looking for Dimitri did not know, but he did not seem to have found something that displeased him, so it was probably a win. 

Then Felix huffed what could only have been a laugh. “I thought you were supposed to get presents on your birthday not…” he trailed off, shaking his head slightly. The grip he still had on Dimitri’s cloak did not loosen. 

“What?” Dimitri asked. 

Felix looked at him incredulously. “Are you telling me that you have no idea about the date?”

Dimitri blinked down at him, once more taken aback by how much shorter Felix was. What did the date matter?

His expression must have given his thoughts away, because Felix snorted and shook his head again. “Unbelievable. You— Unbelievable.”

“Felix?”

Amber eyes found his own and for once, Felix did not break their eye contact immediately. Instead his lips quirked in humor. Dimitri liked seeing the laughed dance in his eyes. “Well…” Felix said.

It was the year of 1184, the morning of the 20th day of the Ethereal Moon. They say that the Goddess has returned to her home in the heavens and prays for peace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday, Dimitri! You found your way home.


End file.
